Regret
by Crukix
Summary: Death. War. Destruction. The world of the future lies in ruins. I got the chance to go back and stop it from ever happening, only to discover that I was the cause. This is how I destroyed the world.
1. Prologue

To begin, let me thank you all for clicking on this for a read. Some of you may be new readers, others may have read my other work before. My thanks go out to all of you, and I implore you all to give me your honest opinion of the following work. It's my first time writing a full story in first person, so I'd like constructive criticism and pointers as to what I'm doing right and wrong. Until then, enjoy...

_Disclaimer_

**Pokémon **is a registered trademark of Satoshi Tajiri, Game Freak, the Pokémon Company, Nintendo, etc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit for purely entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, and are not to be reproduced without his prior consent.

* * *

**Pokémon**

**Regret**

_By Crukix

* * *

_

**Prologue: Reflection**

When you were young, what did you wish for?

Most people share the same common wishes and dreams; to suddenly grow up, to be rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams, to make their parents happy. Of course, most children always wished for a Pokémon of their own; own to go out and have adventures with. Whether they would happen or not, would depend on what kind of wish they were. The majority of wishes would always fall into two categories; feasible, and unfeasible. Feasible could be achieved within life through your own work or luck, unfeasible ones were literally that; unfeasible.

In short, either you make your wishes come true, or they won't happen.

Why do I say this, you wonder? It's merely a reflection. I never was one of those kids; to wish for a brilliant job, a magnificent Pokémon, or even to make my parents proud.

I just wanted out.

Almost a century ago, something happened. Something _bad_ happened. No one knows what caused it anymore; we can only deal with the repercussions. Some say a trainer went mad and started it all, others that it was a nationwide conspiracy, some even say that the Gods themselves abandoned us after abusing what they so thoughtfully created for us eons ago.

Regardless, we suffered in our present day conundrum.

War had been declared. There were no such things as Pokémon trainers anymore, instead, 'trainers' were specialist soldiers, trained in Pokémon warfare, using the creatures to strategically cause the most harm to places, people and other Pokémon. But after that... someone decided that _Pokémon_ were the enemy as well, and so a massacre of the creatures began.

It was all-out war.

People attacked people, people attacked Pokémon, Pokémon attacked Pokémon... it was one massive free-for all between the nations. It had got to the point now that Pokémon were killed on sight, as well as anyone that kept one without a military trainer's license.

Every nation fought for itself; Kanto and Johto had nearly blown each other off the map in trying to dominate the other. I'm not sure what happened to every other nation, but Sinnoh suffered a large eruption from Mount Coronet itself that completely destroyed the entire continent.

And Hoenn was barely hanging on to its sanity. Most say Hoenn was doing the best... but I lived in the nation. I could easily disagree with every ounce of praise they had for our nation. The war had damaged everywhere, reducing it all to nothing but a country-wide warzone. We were all poor; someone sleeping on the streets or eating rotting food wasn't an uncommon sight. Occasionally, when someone died through starvation, a stray bullet, or even through just not wanting to live, whatever was left would sustain us for a few days.

We were cannibals hell bent on genocide.

Was it any wonder I wanted out?

Some say be careful what you wish for. Only with hindsight can you truly understand that. If I'd known exactly what would happen when I finally got to escape... I can honestly say I'd have never made that wish in the first place.

'Hindsight is twenty-twenty,' they say. Well, take what I've learnt from it, and use it all. Learn from my mistakes and maybe... maybe you'll be able to do some good where I could not.

Learn how I destroyed the world in under a year.


	2. Wish Granted

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Wish Granted

* * *

**

_Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that__one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking. _~ Edward Dahlberg

**-O-O-O-**

A week had passed since my seventeenth birthday. Once I had turned seventeen, I was 'promoted' – if you like – to a guard soldier. Everyone was drafted into the defence corps early – it wasn't uncommon for thirteen year olds to be trained in the ways of combating and preventing any threat.

A guard soldier was a position that you could only really achieve after many years of experience, though normally you had to be over eighteen to qualify. Me? I was a 'special case'. Our education – if you could call it that – was always somehow focused into warfare. We learnt about basic maths, history and biology, as well as some English, though most often we were taught about how to shoot a target from forty yards, the various pressure points on an enemy, and the most effective way to neutralise them. And of course, warfare strategy.

Which brings me back to my point; I was top of my class. We'd gotten to the point where there were over a thousand pokémon species known to be stalking the planet; I could name at least half of those by sight alone. For each and every one I could identify, I knew the exact locations on each that would cause instant submission or neutralisation. Such a 'talent' was too good for my superiors to pass up.

Our society rewarded cold blooded murder, and to me, it was an everyday occurrence.

I was on guard duty, yet again, watching the perimeter of our base camp for any stray pokémon. It was rare for one to attack the base, but we couldn't take the risk. I scowled, feeling the effects of the heat weathering away at my body. Hoenn was still a hot climate, even after all the destruction we had caused to it. It didn't help either that I never was any good with heat, the slightest source of heat often made me begin to sweat and wither. Cold, I could deal with. I could happily stand outside in merely a tank top whilst others had to run around in coats to stay warm.

It didn't help that I liked my hair quite long, either. Pausing so I could sweep the obnoxious matt of wet hair from my face, I tucked it to the left, thankful for the reprieve.

I had been stationed to guard a three-mile perimeter of the west entrance. Every so often I would see someone or something wandering along the landscape, as long as it didn't come too close, I would let it carry on. Once it was in my sights, I made the quick identification; friend or foe? Friends would be let to carry on towards our camp; foes didn't make it another step.

Each trip out of camp was scheduled; no person or persons could leave camp without good reason and forewarning. Even then, they were accompanied by a member of the guard corps – even within our own nation, everyone treated everyone as enemies. We'd been reduced to our early territorial instincts, except now we had access to guns and rocket launchers, rather than merely swords and shields.

It might seem strange to anyone else, but since Hoenn had been ripped apart, the remaining resources were subject to a notion of 'first come, first served'. Camps began forming; small colonisations of people eager to get away from the dangerous wilds of pokémon-infested plains. It wasn't unheard of for one camp to raid another, seeking to expand their ranks, or even butchering helpless victims for a month's more food. Everyone outside was a potential enemy, and self-preservation was a common way of life.

Compassion was non-existent now.

Today was meant to be a quiet day – no scheduled visits in or out of camp. So it came to me with surprise when I saw someone attempting to escape our perimeter; he was crawling along the undergrowth, attempting to mask himself with the local flora.

I stared for a moment, reaching for the communicator as I trained the man in my sights.

"Base?" I asked into the receiver, frowning at the slight sound of static. "This is West Guard. We have a civilian making an unscheduled trip from camp. Course of action?"

Static filled my ear for a moment, before the low, gruff tones of a man's voice. "West Guard? This is Commander Flite. How old is the civilian?"

Commander Flite was an old general of approximately forty years. He was a serial womaniser; his service record was his key to success, so to speak. The stories we had been told about him were wondrous; he had supposedly managed to take down a frenzied garchomp with only a weavile claw as a weapon. Probably falsities, but the man was well respected nation-wide. I never fully learnt his full back-story, I only knew that he pushed himself harder than anyone ever did, supposedly to make up for some atrocious crime an ancestor of his had committed.

He never would reveal the full details.

I frowned again, bringing the scope of my rifle to my eye. He carried a withered old book in his left hand, I could see that the cover was frail and in pieces – it made me wonder just how old it was. I was able to find his face easily – rust coloured hair, pale skin, dark blue eyes and a thin build. _Shit!_ I cursed inwardly, identifying him at once. He was Alex Sanders, one of the most promising medics we had within our community.

I swallowed nervously, letting out a hollow sigh. "Approximately fifteen years old, identified as Trainee Medic Alex Sanders," I responded, watching him continue his slow crawl out of camp lines. Just what was he doing? We'd had runaways before, though they'd occasionally been captured and either sold back to us, killed or even betrayed us. And then there were the ones who found Pokémon, and were either eaten by the beasts, or used them to lay waste to our camp.

Why would a medic want to harm people?

Flite's grunt of indecision reverberated in my ears. "Alright West Guard, we're sending someone now to cover your position. Follow and report. Detain if necessary, eliminate if found with pokémon." His voice came out rough and tense, and I found myself understanding why. Alex Sanders was one of Flite's many illegitimate children, though the knowledge was a guarded secret.

The fact that he ordered his child's probable death showed how harsh our culture was.

I nodded emotionlessly. "Roger." Once more focusing after Alex, I made my way down the guard tower, leaping the last few steps to land in the undergrowth. Glancing up, I found my replacement staring after me. I gave him a thumbs up and indicated my objective before I started after the boy, remaining as quiet as I could.

Child of our revered hero or not, if he was endangering us, he wouldn't see the end of the day.

Alex was used to this area – I could tell that much. He navigated through the woods with childish ease, sidestepping pitfalls and local pokémon.

Myself on the other hand, found it a lot harder.

I had the boy constantly focused under the scope of my rifle, though had to multitask with navigating after him without disturbing any pokémon, or giving any indication of my presence. Once or twice I narrowly avoided stepping on the trap leaf of a victreebel, the plants would leave the leaf lying across the floor, and at the first touch of pressure they would swallow you whole, acids dissolving you slowly as you struggled to escape.

A truly horrific way to die.

We slowly made our way into the inside of the forest, where the hairs on the back of my neck all flared on end. Everything about such a location seemed mystical, causing me to frown. I'd never heard any intel on such a place before, so why was it that it existed?

I pressed the communicator in my ear again, whispering as clearly and quietly as I could. "Commander Flite? Have followed the suspect to an unknown location within the Everdeep Woods." I stopped, watching the boy for a moment. He stared at some strange shrine within the centre – it was a poorly constructed totem that gave off a strange green aura. Whatever it was, it was most likely a threat.

"He appears to be waiting for something by some sort of mystical object – possibly pokémon related." I felt my finger slide easily over the trigger of my rifle as I prepared for the worst. "Transmitting location now," I whispered, pressing a small button on my belt. It flashed green once, whirring almost silently with mechanical ease before it silenced. It would take five minutes for a squad to assemble at my location, which gave the boy five minutes to stop his plan.

Or five minutes to live.

The boy stared a moment longer at the shrine before pressing his hands on it and humming gently. My eyes narrowed in suspicion, wondering just what it was he was attempting to do. He continued humming for over a minute, during which I spent the whole time with my rifle pointing squarely at the base of his brain. If he were to do something, I'd stop him before he got the chance.

His humming suddenly stopped, and he stared skyward. I watched after him, barely restraining a hiss as the sky suddenly lit up with a brilliant green light.

Blinking the haze from my eyes, I stared back towards him, finding disbelief running in my veins.

For floating alongside him was a celebi.

Brilliant.

The creatures were natural time travellers, and within pokémon nomenclature were known as legends. All legends had powers unparallel to other pokémon, and were significantly harder to kill.

A celebi had to be disposed of in one shot, one shot that took out both its time travel abilities and its life. Take only the time travel, it would kill you instantly afterwards, and heal within the hour. Its life was only forfeit if it could no longer time travel, otherwise its last instinct was to warp back to a place of healing.

In short, I had one chance to make this.

I pulled the scope to my eye, watching after the creature. Celebi had to be disposed of first, otherwise it would be alerted to my presence. And personally, I didn't feel like dying. I waited for my moment while I listened to their conversation, wondering if I could establish why he snuck out here.

"I managed to escape," said Alex, focusing solely on the pokémon. Rookie mistake. 'Never let down your guard'; it was one of the first rules we were taught in education. "I've got everything ready. Is everything ready on your side?"

The pokémon nodded and chirped enthusiastic sound that I assumed was a positive response.

"Good," the boy responded, his voice beginning to buckle. "If I manage this, can I really stop this future from ever happening? No war will ever happen?"

I dropped my guard as I heard those words. He was searching for a way to stop the war from ever happening? A million questions flooded my brain. How was this possible? _Was_ it possible? Why was he chosen? How would he do it? My childhood dream soared to the front of my brain; a world without our war torn state, an escape from this horrific mess we called home.

My remaining questions were cut off as I heard a gasp erupt from the both of them. I glanced at them, only to see that they were surrounded by the camp's infiltration team. Dubbed 'Kecleon Agents', they were named so after their uniforms. Stolen from the evolutionary adaptations of the pokémon kecleon, their uniforms and armour were all able to camouflage perfectly with the background, save for the same red zigzag present on the pokémon. It seemed the camouflage would only work if the stripe was present.

Conflict ran within me. It was my duty to help them exterminate both creature and human... but they were plotting to stop the world from ever suffering the war. My internal conflict raged within me, giving lead to the resulting chain of events.

The boy screamed.

Gunshots filled the air.

My eyes were unable to tear away from the sight as Alex fell, shredded by a volley of bullets. He wasn't ever getting back up. Celebi however, had erected some manner of blue shield before itself, its eyes glowing the same iridescent colour. The pokémon hovered their hauntingly, its face torn in a mixture of sorrow and regret.

And suddenly, it looked at me.

My stomach dropped to the floor as I felt every thought, every feeling, every emotion suddenly opened up, laid bare to the creature. They were pulled and twisted, relived again and again. I felt myself grow weak at the knees, unable to break the contact.

I briefly wondered if this was what dying felt like.

And then everything vanished in an explosion of green.


	3. Stolen Destiny

_**Pok**__**é**_mon

_**Regret**_

**Stolen Destiny

* * *

**

_"Every man has his own destiny:__the only imperative is to follow it,_ _to accept it, no matter where it leads him."_ ~ Henry Miller

**-O-O-O-**

For some time after my encounter with the mythical creature, my mind and body seemed to be detached from each other. There were sharp feelings of landing somewhere painful... then the feeling of grass underneath my skin... the sounds of someone's voice in the distance... and then nothing.

It continued for an unknown period of time until I found myself waking from the feeling of a natural sleep, a tired haze masking my eyes for the first few moments.

It was instantly clear I was somewhere else.

I was in a bed in a well-decorated house; within the room were the usual furnishings expected, as well as a large mirror across the far wall, two large bay windows on the opposite wall, overlooking a brilliant green meadow, and opposite me was the door into the room, which currently had someone attempting to enter.

I tensed, moving to defend myself, instead almost falling from the bed when I found fatigue overwhelming my body. I struggled uselessly for a moment before the door opened, and I took a sharp inhalation of breath, wondering just who could walk in.

I had feared a house-wife.

She was a non-descript woman, auburn hair that was cut into a bob around her slightly aged face. She wore a deep blue apron over a yellow-flowered light blue dress, and she had deep set green eyes that revealed nothing about herself.

If you saw her on the street, you'd forget her the moment you passed her.

She took a step into the room, glancing at the clock as she entered. "Midday, just like he said," she said whimsically. Her voice was harsher than I expected, it had traces of anger and sorrow lining its foundations. She shrugged and turned to me, offering a small smile. "Hello there." She took a step forwards, still keeping her smile plastered on her face. "My name is Jennifer Hale. I suppose..." She frowned, glancing out of the windows before she pulled out the desk chair and sat next to the bed. "I suppose you could call me your guardian angel for the next few days; I'll be looking out for you and helping you to adjust."

I blinked at her, unable to fathom a response better than a bewildered, "Huh?"

She laughed softly to herself, again glancing through the windows. "I heard all about what happened," she whispered, closing her eyes and clasping her hands together. "I was Celebi's contact here in what you would deem the past. That poor Alex..." She closed her eyes and turned her head, subtly wiping a tear from her eye. "Though Celebi has told me all about you instead. It seems that you're the next best choice – as offending as that might sound."

I nodded as I sat up, leaning heavily against the headboard behind me. The harsh cold of the metal bit against my bare back; making me flinch involuntarily as I pressed myself onto it. "How long have you been plotting this?" I asked. I was still trying to adjust myself to knowing I had somehow been transported into the past, and so I went for questions that hopefully wouldn't over-exert my brain.

She sighed heavily, turning her face to meet mine. "Celebi and I have been planning this for almost a year now," she answered, her face completely serious. "You see, last year I was an archaeologist – not one of the best, but I still had my credentials. On a dig to the west of Meteor Falls – in a place called the Starlit Woods – we found the remains of a strange green totem pole.

"One night, I decided to take a closer look at it," she continued, again looking out of the window. "When I did, there was this strange green aura, and Celebi appeared to me. He explained everything to me, and naturally I didn't believe him. However, then he showed me everything, and I found myself believing."

I did a double-take at her words. "He _'showed'_ you?"

"Yes." She nodded as if it were a commonly heard of event. "He took me through time so I could see for myself the horrors. After that, I quit my job, and we began to plan a way to somehow stop such a future from happening. Celebi monitored so many people, and Alex supposedly was one of the few people that could actually make a difference."

More and more I was starting to feel like I had no purpose here – like I had stolen the hopes and dreams of someone else. "So, I shouldn't be here at all."

She shook her head emphatically, resting her hand gently on my arm. "Of course not dear, if you were not of use, Celebi would not have chosen you."

'Of use', she said. Even in the supposed past, I was still just a tool.

"You should rest for now," she advised, removing her hand and standing up. "Trips through time do drain you of your energy." She smiled knowingly as she replaced the chair and glanced at the clock. "When you wake, I shall answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, as well as begin teaching you how to adapt to this life."

She left quickly after that, leaving me again in the room on my own. I had to wonder slightly; how could she so freely trust a stranger in her home? I could have been a rapist, or a murderer – though some could call me the latter – and she seemed to trust me completely? The question weighed heavily on my mind, though as soon as I closed my eyes, I found myself drifting easily into slumber.

* * *

When I awoke again, a dull amber glow was filling the room from the magnificent windows. The sun was setting, and it made me curious as to what this world looked like. Grumbling, I pulled myself out of bed and walked over to the windows, staring out into the landscape.

It was beautiful.

All my life, I'd only ever seen warzones, trenches, minefields, or places generally torn asunder by the ravages of war. This however, was another story. Green grass stretched on for miles, and in the distance I could see the slow fall of a grey substance that I guessed was ash. To the far right was the beginnings of a large mountain, and further to the north of my position was a large river, circling around and in the grassy meadows.

I turned around and noticed for the first time the small bundle of clothes set on the dresser. A simple white tee and black bottoms had been laid out for me, along with a little note explaining that Jennifer had left them out for me, and that when I woke, I could find her in the kitchen.

I dressed quickly, and couldn't help but wonder; where _was_ the kitchen? She'd seemingly had everything already explained to her, and she didn't think of giving me such a small detail. It was eerily similar to my own present time; yet again someone knew more than they were letting on, and I was involved somehow, though left to trust them blindly.

With no other choice presented to me I opened the door and made my way downstairs. If she wasn't what she said she was; if she was plotting to kill me somehow, I could always fight my way out and escape, if need be. Although it would have been nice to get a fresh start in this past environment, some part of me doubted such a thing would actually happen.

Eventually I managed to find the kitchen, after following the soft sounds of Jennifer's humming. Everything about her house was large, open and beautiful. It made me wonder just how much money this woman had to her name, and how she actually managed to get such an amount, if that was the case.

"Finally awake I see," Jennifer said as I entered the room, my eyes glancing over every surface and corner for threats. Beside her was a small purple cat with a spiralled tail, staring out of the window alongside it's owner. I stopped briefly to consider the glameow; the creature had a least six pressure points that could disable it easily, and the spiralled tail was its strongest weapon, as well as its weakest point. The tail could pack a punch while curled up, yet if you stretched it out, it could cause the creature enough stress to distract it for a killing blow.

Yet this pokémon was completely unlike every other of its species I had seen before. I was used to extremely feral, dishevelled glameow that would hiss and attack on first sighting a human. This own quite happily sat alongside Jennifer and rubbed its face against her arm, making some sort of repetitive humming sound that I'd never heard before.

"Meet Whiskers, my house-cat," Jennifer said as she scratched the pokémon behind the ears. It made the strange sound again as it seemed to smile, and I watched the pokémon warily, anticipating a threat. It wasn't unheard of for the creatures to charm their prey before pouncing, catching them off guard completely.

"I'm afraid you're going to actually have to acquaint yourself with pokémon at one point dear." Jennifer let out a laugh as she saw me watch the creature warily. "You're going to need to blend in, and unfortunately there's no time to enrol you as a soldier. If you want to actually stop this future of yours, you're going to need to become a trainer."

I stared for a moment, words caught on my tongue. I was going to need to train these creatures? Put my trust in these feral beasts and hope they wouldn't turn on me? Pokémon could be used to kill, granted, but if I had to do any killing, I'd rather do it with a rifle in my hands, rather than a poké ball. I voiced these matters to Jennifer, and surprisingly, she only let out another small laugh, shaking her head at the same time.

"Hopefully, you won't need to kill anyone, merely stop them from walking the path which leads to damning everyone." My eyes widened at her words, and a whimsical smile appeared on her face. "Yes, you heard right. I'm not sure how many, but only a few people are behind what happens. It could be as few as two, as many as ten. And you, you're the one that needs to stop them."

I felt my breath catch in my throat, and I swallowed nervously. "But, why me?" I asked weakly, feeling nervous sweat begin to form on my head.

"Because dear," she said as she placed a hand softly on my shoulder. "Celebi chose you. You understand that sometimes a subtle approach can give a better result than violence can? That is the situation we're in." A sad smile crossed her face as I felt something cold placed in my hand. "You're going to have to learn to adapt, and the best way to do that is to train a pokémon and see the world. Use what you learn to help shape and change the future. I'll spend some time teaching you what I can, but ultimately it's going to be your experiences with these little guys that will help you achieve your destiny."

I felt the weight of her words as I stared down at the red and white sphere in my hand. I could change the future, make an effort and shape it differently, or do nothing and let it be the same. At least that was the idea she had told me.

Training these feral beasts would help me achieve my destiny, she said. The only problem was, it was never my destiny in the first place, I was just the closest available substitute.

And substitutes would never achieve the full potential of the first choice, as we would all eventually see.


	4. Starting Anew

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Starting Anew  


* * *

**

_Compassion alone_

_ stands apart from the continuous traffic _

_between good and evil proceeding within us. _~ Eric Hoffer_  
_

* * *

It took me a while longer to actually remember the strange contraption in my hand. I stared at it for a moment longer, somehow managing to forget it was there even while I was looking at it. The Poké Ball seemed alien... so foreign. In my time, they were covered in a camouflage pattern, or in warning labels, threatening of impending doom if used incorrectly.

"The sooner you open it, the sooner you'll see what's inside," Jennifer advised me with the slight hints of humour in her voice. I glanced upwards briefly at her, feeling a slight pink tinge begin to attack my cheeks. Right, the whole reason I was here was to stop something from happening, and to do so I had to blend in as a trainer.

Suffice to say, staring blankly at a Poké Ball wasn't exactly something everyone did.

"Right." I nodded once and lobbed the ball forwards, watching as it simply rebounded off a cupboard opposite, bounced across the floor and rolled into the hallway, whereupon Whiskers decided it was simply a game and chased after the object. "It didn't work," I stated simply.

"You're using it wrongly," Jennifer said in a somewhat tired voice. She whistled once and Whiskers bounded back in, Poké Ball in her mouth. The creature dropped it into Jennifer's waiting hands and made the strange humming sound again as it was scratched behind it's ears.

"Press the button in the middle to enlarge it," she began to explain, giving me a demonstration at the same time. "And then again to shrink it. But when you want to release the creature inside, you actually have to call it out – quite literally."

I considered her words for a moment, and thought back to the times I'd seen the trainers of my time use Pokémon. They would scream out silly phrases as they lobbed the balls forwards, causing the creatures to explode out from the spheres. I looked back up to Jennifer and felt disbelief fill me completely. "You've got to be kidding me..." I groaned, having a rough idea what she meant. "I actually have to be one of those stupid goons who scream 'Pokémon X come out!'?"

"I suppose that's one way of putting it." Jennifer shrugged innocently, her hair bouncing behind an ear. "Each trainer gives a different spin on what they like to call their 'battle cry'." She pressed the button on the sphere absentmindedly, continuously increasing and decreasing it's size. Admittedly, I couldn't have actually cared less about what the Pokémon inside was thinking.

"It's something built into the technology they're made with," she was explaining with that smug look adults took on when they were teaching something. "There's voice-recognition software built into the devices. That way they know what you want to do; otherwise you could end up throwing an occupied ball at a wild Pokémon and end up with two Pokémon in one ball – and that's _very_ messy, let me assure you." To my surprise, she didn't look the slightest bit queasy at the thought, she simply shrugged and petted her cat, as if she were talking about the sunrise that very morning.

"Some people can do it mentally instead," she continued, though sounded less sure of herself in such a topic. "It's something to do with human's natural abilities or something... it varies between each trainer, but supposedly those that work especially with psychic types can learn how to give commands to the Poké Balls without ever speaking." She pressed the ball into my hands again and another seemingly fake smile graced her face. "So unfortunately, you're going to have to be one of those 'screaming goons'."

I stared down at the ball in my hands again. It would have had to occur when I was just getting used to a new world, wouldn't it? Something hated me that much that it would make me think I could adjust normally, and then give me a complete curveball.

I took a deep breath and sucked up every ounce of pride and self-respect I had for myself. If I had to continually embarrass myself in this strange world, I guess I could start by making an ass of myself in front of this woman who was looking after me.

"Urm... come out, whoever you are!"

I don't think I'd ever felt so self-conscious and idiotic until I did that. Not even the hazing the older recruits would put the younger ones through back in training camp made me feel so ridiculous. And that hazing included many, _many_ things that made it so I could never take myself seriously again.

The was a loud exploding sound and then a flash of bright light, and suddenly there was a strange Pokémon flying before me. It was a grey creature that originated from Sinnoh; a Starly. It fluttered around a moment before letting out a sudden war cry and dive-bombed me. I felt my instincts flood my senses and take over, and the next thing I knew, Jennifer was screaming, and I was holding a now-dead Starly's twisted neck in my hands.

I blinked a moment, staring at the dead bird. I didn't feel anything for it; it was just dead. Jennifer stopped screaming and swept the Pokémon away from me, muttering a few unintelligible phrases.

Needless to say, she was a bit weird around me for a while.

* * *

I was seemingly forgiven quickly, and Jennifer quickly impressed on me knowledge of how to travel round the world, how to look after myself in these day and ages, along with multiple explanations of what year it was, and what hadn't happened yet, and still needed to happen.

For instance, I was apparently meant to let some idiotic creep built dreams of starting a new organisation of criminals, only to be beaten down by a ten year old trainer in the next few months. Supposedly, it would teach the criminal world a few things, and there would be no more major threats as such for a few years until there was another in a far away region. Admittedly, I missed some of her explanation, and could only recall that it began with an 'I'. There was only so much new information I could take in, after all.

Later that day I found myself sat on the grass in her garden, my feet dipping in her pond as I contemplated what had happened to me. A foreign world, a different time. Given Jennifer's reaction, I understood that it was socially unacceptable to harm a Pokémon... though in a few years time, it would be common place.

I didn't have the heart to tell her just how many people and Pokémon I'd killed, and she didn't want to know.

Her pet was happy though; he feasted on the remains of the Starly. Apparently that made him like me very much, and suddenly I had the creepy creature skulking around my body, looking for another meal. I glared at it, waiting until I crept away. It was a hunter, it could find it's own. Me however, I needed to find my place in this world.

Or rather what would have been Alex's.

I remained there for a while, wondering just how different things may have been if he'd successfully been taken. I'd have been reprimanded after he'd have disappeared in front of my vision, and he'd have possibly taken that Starly, and exposed it to the 'modern day' system of battling.

When I pointed out to Jennifer that it was a feral competition; getting these beasts to rip and tear into each other, she reassured me it was not. They supposedly grew and learnt by battling; 'experiential evolution' she called it. When the Pokémon was injured, it would heal and learn from the injuries; being able to recover better and defend itself the next time. Those traits would then be passed down to their children, and so on.

It again brought the eternal philosophical question; were humans really right in claiming ownership over such creatures? Sure we had technology on our side, but they could adapt and evolve in a matter of year, as opposed to ours of at least decades.

Then again, it also brought me to a realisation at the time. I didn't actually care. Sure, I'd wanted out of having to kill on a day-to-day basis, but that didn't mean I was a bleeding heart. The first thing warfare taught you was to leave compassion behind. If you stopped to give someone a burial, or to pay respect to the dead, you'd soon find yourself with them. The same with philosophy; it sewed seeds of doubt, and doubt could lead to your downfall.

I sighed and kicked my feet distantly in the pond, recoiling as my toes brushed against something slimy. I jumped up and distantly heard Jennifer come into the garden as I tensed, waiting for the creature to attack.

It waddled slowly out of the water, and I felt my guard begin to drop. It was a little blue tadpole-like creature with a large green leaf growing from its back. It blinked as a few gnats swarmed around it before it spat small globules of water at them, watching with a strange sort of hollow interest as the creatures drowned.

And through such actions, I found myself intrigued by the creature. It looked up at me and blinked again before it waddled over and began to eat the tiny flies it had just killed.

I knew that this world was different then; that these Pokémon were not as feral as the ones I had grown up with. Home for me was when even the likes of Magikarp and Hoppip were fearsome creatures. Here, I was crouched next to a Lotad, who it seemed was indifferent about my presence.

It took me a while to realise the sound buzzing around me was a laugh. Or to be more precise; it was _my_ laugh. I reached over and scratched the Pokémon's head, causing it to roll over and expose its stomach, making me laugh again as I began to scratch the exposed area.

Behind me, I heard Jennifer approach and place a Poké Ball beside me.

"I would think he's who you're start with," she stated in a meaningful voice, crouching down beside me. "So it all works out well."

I looked back to her and smiled before glancing back at the creature. Lotad were a strange species; I could identify at least sixteen fatal points on the creature that could be hit with something the size of a pinprick for best effect by an expert. Small sacs that seemed swollen around its cloacae positively identified it as male; it would fertilise the eggs females laid from there.

Such thoughts made me truly appreciate what a strange education I had; where alongside being taught the best ways to kill, we were taught how to identify gender as best as possible. After all, some Pokémon had key differences between genders that could be used to ensure a quicker death.

My heavy musings were cut short when I saw Jennifer's lips moving, and I registered that I'd missed everything she'd said.

"Sorry," I offered the apology half-way through her words. "I zoned out."

She gave me an understanding smile and shook her head slightly. "I was asking if you've thought about catching him. And if so, what you're going to name him?"

I glanced back at the Pokémon, and only just realised I was still scratching his stomach. He looked like he'd fallen asleep there, and I couldn't help but wonder how I'd blanked out the slimy feel of his skin on mine.

I had to be a trainer, and I supposed there were worse creatures I could have started with. I looked at the Pokémon and smiled, for the first time in a long time, I felt the slightest ebbs of compassion return to myself. I closed my eyes and smiled, thinking of how my journey started, and again to the person who should have been here.

And I knew what I should name this creature.

"Xander," I breathed, noting the Pokémon's eyes open to look at me as I said the name. "I'll call him Xander."

I named him after the dead kid that led to me being here. Lack of compassion be damned. If I was going to start a new life, journey and change the future, I'd do it on my own terms.

At least, that was what I'd originally planned. Only, how often did plans work out perfectly?


	5. How the World Works

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**How the World Works

* * *

**

_Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. _

_Anyone who keeps learning stays young. _

_The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young._ ~ Henry Ford

* * *

_"Understanding and using psychic abilities are two very different things. If the mind is not ready to use the abilities, the resulting trauma is often fatal._"

- Sabrina Maxime, founder of the Saffron City psychic-type gym. _(July 17, 3013)

* * *

_

I quickly realised after catching the Pokémon that training them was a lot harder than I had first thought. Originally I believed that you could simply call out a few commands, and the Pokémon would follow them without hesitation. Sadly, it seemed I was very mistaken. Not only would I have to teach each and every Pokémon I caught what each command meant, I would also have to train them to respond to their own names.

And it didn't help that the damned Lotad rarely responded to his new name.

I tried for nearly an hour straight trying to get him to respond to the name. Every time I would say it, I'd get barely anything that could be considered a response. The most I got was a small, uninterested blink from the creature. As barbaric as it may have sounded to some people, I was _extremely_ tempted to kick some sense into it.

Then again, it might not have exactly had a good effect. It took me the better part of the day to get the creature to understand his name, and then a further hour to get him to respond to it. By the end of the day though, every time I said his name, Xander would look up in interest before continuing with whatever he was doing beforehand.

Which was usually lounging in the sun, lounging in the water, or lazily eating small bugs.

How did I end up with such a lazy creature? Someone, somewhere had to be taunting me. I knew eventually Lotad would become the energetic creatures known as Ludicolo, though I did worry about how I'd deal with an unresponsive Pokémon that would become more powerful every time it heard a music tune.

I recalled Xander and headed back into the house, knowing that soon enough I would have to depart the safety of Jennifer's land of luxury. I found the woman sat at the table, food ready and waiting, her Pokémon sat at the table and waiting patiently for everyone to arrive. I found myself feeling a new level of respect for the woman; here I was only managing to get Xander to understand his name after a day, and she had a Glameow managing to resist the temptation to dive into a plate of food.

The woman smiled as I entered the room, and made a show about making me wash my hands before I could sit down. At her command, I let out Xander, and then found myself watching a sudden blue blur devouring the food she'd specially made for him.

I swear, it was the fastest I ever saw him move.

Jennifer just smiled, laughing to herself. "It's alright, you haven't trained him properly yet. In time, you'll be able to get him to understand attack commands, strategies, and maybe even share a full conversation with him."

I found myself staring at her in silent shocked horror. "Pokémon... can talk?" I gasped, blundering my way through a confusing topic.

She laughed softly, shaking her head in time with her laugh. "No dear. Some have been known to, but that's only because they spent years learning it. Psychic Pokémon can communicate by telepathy, but others won't be able to do much past their natural grunts and growls. But as you bond with your Pokémon, you'll be able to understand them more; a single eye movement might let you know your Pokémon is hungry or thirsty."

I again found myself with a new sense of respect for trainers. I never really put how much thought into how they domesticated the creatures; I simply thought they were nothing more than tools of attack, that you could simply point and yell a command, and they'd follow through. I frowned at the thought, realising that most experiences I would have to concur on my own. I doubted Jennifer would travel with me on my journey; most people travelled alone or in small groups, and I didn't think any would travel with someone old enough to be their mother.

She smiled again, gesturing for me to begin eating. Whiskers sat silently and watched me, only beginning to eat her own food as I started on my own. All respect to Jennifer; that cat was extremely well trained. She noticed me watching her Pokémon's perfect table manners, and let out another small chuckle. "There's perhaps a few more things I should clarify for when you journey," she told me between eating her own food. I nodded to show her I was listening, savouring every morsel of food. My time as a solider taught me to appreciate every meal, and to always give your full respect to whoever took time to prepare food for you. I may have been paid to kill, but I still had common courtesy and manners.

"Obviously, you're not going to able to have a permanent source of food with you," she explained, pressing her hands gently together. "So over the course of your travels, you will most likely end up killing and eating wild Pokémon. I trust you are not against this?"

I shook my head, waiting until my mouth was empty before I spoke. "I'm perfectly fine with such a thing. I lived in a world where if food was scarce, we'd eat our own dead. I can handle killing a few Pidgey or the like and preparing them properly."

She nodded again. "Very well. But I'm going to give you a recipe book to take with you, regardless of your confidence in your abilities." I nodded my thanks as she smiled, again watching as Whiskers ate her food. I never had considered before that Pokémon would be content eating vegetables, yet here the Pokémon was happily eating peas and broccoli. Despite it all, I found myself smiling at it. Xander drew my attention by suddenly making a gurgling noise, causing me to leap from my own skin. I looked at him, gripping a fork as a weapon, only to see him let out a small burp and roll on his back, falling asleep instantly.

"The more you bond with your Pokémon, the more you'll understand it," Jennifer told me, paraphrasing her own earlier words, and ignoring my own unfamiliarity with my own Pokémon. "In accordance, they will be able to sense your own emotions. Rather like when you spend so much time a friend, a lover, a colleague or a brother in arms, you become more attuned to each other. Remember that if you worry about something, your Pokémon will worry too. If you become over confident, so will your Pokémon." She stopped for a moment to eat some more of her food. "And this one may sound strange, but spend as much time as you can in libraries or reading books." I must have pulled a confused face, as she smiled the smile she always bore from a mixture of pity and amusement. "You may know how to kill Pokémon, and what signs to look out for in respect to nests and the like, but how much do you know of caring for your own Pokémon? Treating their illnesses, coping with their typing abilities, or even how to cope with various species and their inherent abilities and downfalls. Even now I'm still learning more about Pokémon, how better to care for each and every one. The life of a trainer is fantastic in that respect; you never once stop learning."

I took her words to heart. In a few small days, I'd learnt that not all Pokémon were natural killers, and some could even be able to be trained to resist eating food. I'd also learnt how much effort needed to be placed in training itself. The thought that no matter how old I got, I would continue learning excited me to no end.

"Most importantly," she said in a graver tone. "Never forget what you're here to do. Understand that every action has consequences, no matter how small the action is, and no matter how long it takes for the repercussions to occur. Your journey may make you see the darkest depths of the soul that humanity has to offer, but remember that if you ever decide to sit back and do nothing, you could very well ensure your grave future still exists."

Her words effectively brought the mood down, something which she herself realised as she sat and ate in silence afterwards. When we had both finished, she motioned for me to remain seated. "No matter what, ensure you enjoy yourself on your journey." I wasn't sure whether she was trying to re-establish a lighter mood, but it was obvious she was trying. "Being a trainer, journeying the world, making bonds that never die with Pokémon... those are without a doubt the happiest times in your life. I won't tell you anything more about what you will experience on your journey, as some things you will need to experience, rather than be told."

I nodded, helping her with the dishes afterwards. We made small talk as we cleaned up, varying from her own life so far, and the many sights she had seen, to my own experiences, and the seldom beauty I had found within my world. I knew I would be leaving the day after, due to the tone of her voice, and found myself missing her presence before my departure.

"I'll be able to speak with you whilst I'm on my journey, won't I?" I asked her when we were done cleaning. She gave me the most regretful look I'd ever seen, and I felt immediately like I'd overstepped the mark.

"For a time, yes," she told me, obviously choosing her words carefully. "But I think in about a month, you won't be able to anymore, I'm afraid."

If I was holding a plate at the time, I probably would have dropped it. "Why?" I found myself asking. She'd took me in, taught me so much in such a short time, and no doubt invested a worthwhile sum into my journey. I found it strange that she may have decided to cut off contact with me.

She sighed and placed a hand to the side of her head. "It's a side effect of working so closely with a psychic type Pokémon," she began, gesturing for me to take a seat. She waited until we had both sat down before she continued. "Human minds aren't as complex or developed of those of a psychic Pokémon, you see. When we work closely with them, they share portions of their powers with us. For most trainers, this is nothing more than a telepathic bond with each other, and at most, image transferring. This doesn't affect us at all. However-" she gripped her hands tightly together, turning them a pale white with the pressure. "Anything more can have adverse effects on humans. I told you before that Celebi showed me everything I needed to know?"

I nodded in confused confirmation, wondering where she was going with this train of conversation.

"Well, to do so, Celebi had to share with me a larger part of its power with me. However, when a psychic type shares large powers with a human... it's nothing short of a death sentence for the human in question. I'm dying," she told me further, obviously refusing to let her voice crack under her palpable emotions. "I have an inoperable brain tumour because of it. I have a month, maybe two left on this world." She could see the horror and surprise written plainly on my face as she smiled grimly, shaking her head in acceptance of her fate, and in refusal of my silent protests. "If I had the choice, I would do it again. I have a child of my own, you see. She's on her own journey now, somewhere in the Kanto region." Her face swelled with obvious pride as she told me about her. "Her name is Erica Hale. If you ever do meet her, please do look after her, however briefly you may be travelling, or even talking to each other. I did this not only to help a poor child from changing their life, but also to prevent my daughter's children from having to grow up in such a world."

I sat in dumbstruck confusion. Whiskers began to rub herself sadly against Jennifer, seemingly showing me some of the emotional bond that Jennifer had began to explain to me. I had always known psychic Pokémon were some of the worst to encounter, that they could make your body twist in horrible ways that it wasn't meant to twist in, or even induce migraines or worse. But I had never considered that even working with one could be a death sentence. I distantly began to wonder how many people had tried something similar on their separate quests for power.

"So unless the situation leaves you with no other alternative, never abuse the powers of a psychic Pokémon," Jennifer instructed me as she quickly erected the walls of her hastily constructed happy-go-lucky facade. "Now, you'll be leaving tomorrow on your journey, so ensure you have an early night. I'll explain a few more things to you tomorrow."

I stopped in my seat for a while longer, wondering just what I should do. "I... I don't have to sleep," I told her. "I could quite happily stay awake and leave tomorrow regardless, if you'd like the company."

She smiled a smile born of happiness and sadness both. "No dear, it's not necessary. The fact that I've had the time to get to know a young man of such high honour such as yourself is enough for me. I have a few more things to do before I too retire for the night, and believe me, when you leave, you'll be glad you had a good night's sleep beforehand.

I nodded my acceptance to her before I stood and picked up Xander, keeping the snoring creature in my arms. His slimy body slipped slowly under my grip, making me adjust until I could hold him still. I placed my hand on Jennifer's shoulder before I left the room, walking up the many stairs that only then seemed to hold so much sadness within.

Strangely enough, despite everything I had heard, I was asleep instantly that night.

* * *

Drilled into me from an early age, waking up before dawn was a normal, natural everyday experience for me. Yesterday's clothes were still folded neatly at the bottom of the bed where I had left them, and Xander was tucked away safely in his Poké Ball, itself placed atop my small pile of clothes.

I stretched and popped my shoulders and back, taking one last glance at the view from the windows. By the time I had returned from my shower, it seemed that Jennifer had taken yesterday's clothes and left me out a new set for my journey. After quickly drying myself I dressed in the new clothes she had left for me, taking a moment to appraise myself in the mirror, realising I hadn't much seen my appearance since I'd arrived in the strange times of the past.

My brown hair fell slightly below the start of my neck, framing my face and falling short of my left eyebrow. Brown eyes stared back in my reflection, passing a scrutinising glare over my slightly tanned skin. My face still retained some baby-fat, saving my cheeks from looking as hollow as they should have.

My travel clothes were a beige tee over which I wore a dark green sleeveless jacket. Equally dark green pants covered the entirety of my legs, and I had a pair of beige steel-capped hiker's boots on my feet. The belt meant to hold my Poké Balls was a bandolier I wore over my chest from right to left, at that moment holding only Xander's ball. I reached into my tee and pulled out my dog tags, letting them sit over the beige tee. For whatever reason, seeing their silver shine made me feel more stable. They were my own; a record of my promotion into the guard corps. As much as I may have disliked the time I grew up in, they were symbolic that I had managed to achieve something with my life. Knowing that alone filled me with confidence.

When I arrived downstairs, Jennifer was already waiting for me. Her face was a mixture of pride and sadness, and she held a rucksack covered in a beige camouflage pattern.

"Here," she said as she placed it gently in my hands. "I've already put your slacks in there, as well as a few small provisions such as potions and the like."

I said my thanks and stared at the backpack, wondering just how everything managed to fit into something so small. I'd knew Poké Balls used some sort of strange technology to minimise the creatures to fit, but I never once thought it could be applied to bags or the like.

"Sorry if you don't like the whole army theme, but it's the only thing I thought you'd have any want to wear," Jennifer told me as she placed a hand softly on my arm. "Everything else was covered in logos and names you wouldn't understand, or endorsed by people you wouldn't know of. Clothes are often the first thing people will talk about, so I thought you could lie and say you were an army cadet, hence the clothes."

I smiled appreciatively, placing my hand over hers and squeezing it the once. "They're perfect. I appreciate it completely. Strange as it might sound, I like having something that reminds me of who I am. It anchors me, letting me know what I came from, what I experienced, and what the world stands to fall into should I fail. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you."

Her face erupted into the biggest smile I'd seen from her before she swept me into her arms and pulled me into a crushing hug. "You're more than welcome. It's been nothing short of a pleasure and honour getting to know you." She sniffed as she released me, pausing to wipe at her teary eye. "We're just south of Mauville at the moment," she clarified for me as she pressed an open map into my hands. "You'll need to head south-west, along Route one-hundred-and-three past Altering cave, south through Oldale Town and into Littleroot," she detailed for me as she illustrated the path across the map with a finger. "When you get to Littleroot, register as a trainer with Professor Birch. He'll give you access to trainer benefits, such as being able to store Pokémon with him, and give you your very own Pokédex." I must have had a complete blank expression at her words, as she gave me a small laugh with a well-mannered slap on the arm. "It's nothing short of a portable encyclopaedia on Pokémon. It acts as a trainer I.D., as well as giving a trainer untold amounts of information about each Pokémon. He'll be able to explain it to you better though," she conceded with a small laugh.

"Here," she said suddenly as she pressed a small book into my hands. "Use this in the mean time." I looked at the book, reading the cover in interest. _A guide to Hoenn's native Pokémon, by E.G. Alerce._

"He was one of the first Pokémon researchers based in the Hoenn region," she informed me, knowing I was looking at the unknown name on the book. "I used this book in my own travels; I didn't obtain a Pokédex until my third year journeying. It may be outdated now; it only contains data on Pokémon from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh, and nothing on legendaries or the likes of Porygon, but it should be more than enough for you until you obtain a Pokédex." She noticed me pull out a slip of paper with a series of numbers on, and let out a small laugh. "And that's my number. You did say you wanted to contact me, after all." She winked happily.

I found myself lost for words at the woman's boundless generosity. "Thank you." I couldn't say much more than that, no words could truly express my true thanks to her. She sensed this and swept me in another hug, holding me tightly against her.

"One last question," she whispered, her eyes filling up with saline sadness. For the first time since I'd known her, she looked completely hesitant. She gulped and took a breath before voicing, "In your future... do people remember me?"

I stared at her for a blank moment. "I've heard of you in my time," I lied to her. "There was a large archaeology school named after you before the war destroyed it."

She looked at me for a moment, tears brimming in her eyes. "Liar," she accused correctly, punching me softly in the chest. "Thank you," she murmured softly, squeezing my shoulders affectionately. "Now go on, go have a good journey. Even if I'm not remembered in your future, I'm more than happy to know I helped change it for the better."

I didn't know what to do. Unsure of myself I swept her into a hug of my own, resting my own head gently on hers. "I swear to you, I'll make sure they _do_ build a school of archaeology, even if I have to build it myself!" She laughed along with me, thanking me for my consideration.

I swore then and there, that no matter whether I succeeded or failed, that would be one promise I would keep.


	6. Journeys' Annoyances

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Journeys' Annoyances  
**

* * *

_Never miss a good chance to shut up _~ Will Rogers

* * *

_"The people you meet on your journey will fall into two categories; they'll annoy you and be the best friends you could ever make, or they'll be a perfect companion until your back meets their knife."_

- Steven Stone, 52nd Hoenn League Runner Up_. (November 25th, 3019)

* * *

_

The first few days taught me so much about my journey that I would have overlooked otherwise. Like the ways to tell when a Pidgey was fully cooked, what signs to look out for in various nests, and the plants that could actually be used in food.

The latter two were something that were learnt the hard way. Firstly I'd managed to set Xander down in a stream which turned out to be full of Carvanha, and secondly when I'd used a herb Xander had been eating for our food, foolishly overlooking the fact that he was a creature born of water with a symbiotic relationship with a lea. The after effects of the food definitely taught me a lesson.

More and more, I found myself staring at the book Jennifer had given me on the morning I left. It was obvious to book was fairly outdated; there were many techniques Pokémon could learn that hadn't been detailed within its pages, but it was still exceedingly useful. I found that after an hour, I had almost worn out the pages detailing Lotad and its evolutionary family. Little after a day, I'd worn through most of the small details about other creatures, and added my own notes to the book. It made me consider getting a newer book and annotating it, considering the lack of information the book possessed.

For example, it was extremely unfortunate it didn't tell me much about getting Xander to use any of his elemental attacks. I knew that he was a grass and water Pokémon, and thus had access to at least those sort of attacks. It meant I was the one left to teach him to use them.

Getting him to use them, however, was proving harder than making him understand his name.

Once I'd been travelling for a week, I figured it would be easier to try to encourage him by example. I tried flinging leaves at him, even splashing him with water. All it got me was a disinterested look, followed by a small croak. I'd tried commanding him to use Water Gun... what he produced was nothing more than a glorified globule of spit.

I gave up for a short while after that.

It was far too hot in this time of Hoenn; even though I was travelling along near a long winding river, a brilliant long road built above that only allowed bicycles to traverse across. And here I was, sat within knee-high grass, wilting under the weather. Xander croaked and waddled over to me, squatting down on my lap. His slimy little body was strangely cooling, and made me feel a little bit less boiled in my own skin.

I contemplated for a brief time getting a new Pokémon. One that would listen to me instantly, making this journey a little bit easier. The more I thought on it, the more I realised; every wild Pokémon was just that; wild. The feral creatures needed to be tamed and trained, and to fit in with the trainers of this time, I would have train them well.

So maybe I'd just stick with Xander for the time being.

My thoughts also brought me to my biggest concern; what was I to do to ensure the future I lived in from not happening? Being a trainer was all well and good, but what exactly could I do to use that to my advantage? It had bothered me a lot the first week I journeyed, and it grew on me as the days passed. I was used to being given orders and following them through, not making up my own plans ad lib. Everything was truly a new experience in a foreign world.

My musings were cut off as I heard feral growling approaching us both. I leapt to my feet and admittedly forgot about Xander, letting him fall freely to the ground. My eyes flickered over the grass and my immediate surroundings, searching for the source of the sound. Immediately I found the source; a small green canine with yellow markings lining its cheeks and back. Its mouth was twisted into a snarl, small sharp fangs bared at me and Xander both.

I spared a glance at Xander, who was staring at the feral Electrike with his normal blank gaze. I swore, knowing that the Electrike's weak spots could only truly be exploited with ranged attacks. The electricity covering its body was likely to electrocute or paralyze me if I attempted to hit it myself.

It snarled and charged static about its body, making me take a step back in apprehension. I wasn't going to fall prey to a knee-high electric canine, especially not on the first day of my journey.

"Xander," I growled at my Pokémon. "I don't care whether you're placid or not. This thing is threatening us, and unless you want to become its next meal, I suggest you start to fight back."

The creature snarled as it approached us both, fur coming alive with static. I prepared myself to kick the beast as far as I could just moments before a blast of water knocked the creature from its feet.

I thought back briefly to the beginning trainers of my time. I had rarely spent time watching them, but I knew they had to encourage and point out every advancement their Pokémon made. "Good job!" I called out to Xander, watching him waddle closer to the snarling beast. "Water Gun it again!"

Before Xander could retaliate the beast had leapt at him, snarling, biting and clawing his way through my Pokémon. I watched in silent horrified fascination as they fought, biting, clawing and barging into each other. Fur, flesh, blood and leaf flew everywhere around them both, coupling with the sounds of their feral cries.

Xander backed away, growling as blood trickled in a serpentine trail down his head. The Electrike leapt again, teeth bared for the kill. Xander ducked down and jumped to the side clumsily, regaining his footing instantly. I had to admit a level of respect for the little fighter, he was a lot smarter and more capable than I had thought.

"Keep it up Xander!"

Xander and the Electrike paced a large circle around each other. In a split second water blasted from Xander's mouth, knocking the Electrike's feet from under it. As the Electrike cried out and fell to the ground, Xander rushed forwards, body not moving and legs moving so fast in the creepiest movement I'd even seen. He barrelled into the Electrike at full pelt, knocking it clean into some nearby bushes.

It snarled weakly at us this time before it turned around and limped away, leaving Xander victorious. I laughed and swept Xander up in my arms, laughing as I threw him into the air and caught him. I caught sight of the multiple scratches and bruises covering his body now, and the wide grin he was wearing in place of his normal dull expression. I had to stop to think... did Pokémon consider such fights _fun_? The Electrike had obviously been looking for a meal, and here Xander was enjoying beating it into submission.

It made me think that Pokémon were infinitely more feral then I had ever believed. That they seemed to enjoy causing other Pokémon pain made me consider; did they attack people in my time for equal enjoyment? I knew that they evolved and grew by experience in battles... it just never occurred to me that they would take such pleasure in it.

I placed Xander on the floor, rummaging in my bag for something to help ease over his wounds. I stopped as I gripped the handle of a small bottle in my bag. I pulled it out, staring at the label. It was supposedly a potion, meant to be able to heal most wounds. I called Xander back over and squirted him with the solution, holding him still as he winced as it stung his open wounds. With morbid awe I watched as the cuts and bites heal over before my eyes like a surgeon had sewed them up in record speed. A few looked slightly paler than before, and I assumed that they were going to become small scars.

Xander croaked in appreciation before he decided to settle down in my lap, lazing again in the sunlight. I assumed he needed to be placed in some water soon, given his water typing. In the mean time though, he seemed perfectly content to soak up the sunlight. I supposed that since he was a grass type, he could produce food by photosynthesis.

For the second time in quick succession, I found my thoughts cut short. This time, however, it was due to a heavy thump on the ground, like something heavy had just landed nearby. I jumped and went to glare at the threat...

...only to find it was a foot taller than me.

I stared up at the creature's bug-like body, noticing the sun shining off the green scales coating its body. Its wings had a brilliant red lining, and equally red goggles covering its eyes. Three antennae sprouted from its head, and its tail ended in three prongs that were small versions of its wings. Beneath them were two barbaric looking stingers that were nearly transparent in colour.

From its back descended a person wearing a black trench coat – of all things – in this weather. A dark navy scarf hung from his neck, tied loosely halfway down his chest, and a slim-fit white tee imprinted with a haunting skull glowering in the eeriest way I'd ever seen. He wore black jeans and steel caps, and had light brown hair with bright red tips, whilst black framed glasses made his greyish eyes look strangely small.

"Shit, did I scare ya?" he asked with an obvious laugh on his lips. He walked towards me, patting the Flygon on its shoulder as he passed it. I narrowed my gaze at him, watching him approach warily. "Sorry if I did, we just had to touch down quickly. For whatever reason there's a flock of Skarmory flying nearby, and I really do _not_ want to have mid-air battles." He laughed once more, squinting down at Xander. "Wow, you've got a Lotad? Damn, lucky you. Always wanted one of them; Ludicolo always make me laugh when they start dancing."

I stared at him in level confusion. I truly began to wonder if people were normally like this, or if this guy was just as strange as he seemed. Admittedly, I didn't have much to compare to – I hadn't seen anyone in my whole week outdoors. Surely people didn't get their Pokémon to scare the living daylights out of people and then talk to them like nothing's happened?

"I can't see Xander _ever_ being an energetic Ludicolo," I found myself telling the stranger. I didn't really know where I was going with the conversation, but admittedly the human company was nice, even if the guy was annoying me slightly already.

"Apparently they _do_ become energetic," he told me with conviction. "I know a few people that have trained them up, and it's supposedly what happens in the end." He pulled off his glasses and cleaned them briefly, scowling as he held them up to appraise his work. "Flying really does a number on your clothes, you know? So many little tiny bugs end up squished against you." He pulled a face before he squatted before me, smiling a broad smile. "I'm Adryan. Call me Ayd if ya like," he said as he shoved a hand in front of me. "The Flygon back there's Irenui. Don't let her size scare ya, she's nice as anything."

I introduced myself and Xander as I shook his hand, noting the multiple scars covering Irenui's body. I gathered that Xander would one day end up covered in a similar amount of battle trophies, and most likely me myself. I pushed the thought away as I remembered he mentioned knowing people who had raised Lotad, and I asked him if he knew how to teach Lotad abilities.

"I might know, if the price is right," he said with a wide grin. I stared in seriousness as he laughed at his own joke. "Just kidding dude. Urm," he stumbled as he rubbed the back of his head. "It all depends on the typing and the Pokémon themselves. You can usually help a water Pokémon by using a water pistol, or even just splashing it. Grass types can be taught by like spitting watermelon seeds at them, or the like. Use your common sense, or read a few books, they'll help you out." He laughed as Irenui flapped her wings and floated up alongside her trainer. "Can't tell ya how mad it was trying to teach madam here to use ground attacks. Between the continual mud throwing and everything else, I think we came home coated in more mud than a Koffing has poison! And don't even get me started on teaching the dragon moves!"

His voice was slowly becoming louder and louder, to the point where I was sure people in the nearby towns could hear him. He seemed to take and treat everything as a big joke, and seemed to love trying to push people's buttons. He was fast becoming annoying.

"Anyway, you know where Altering Cave is?" he asked me abruptly. "I want to go there and check it out. Apparently there's loads of Pokémon there not native to Hoenn."

I nodded. "It's on Route a hundred and three nearby."

"Cool, cheers dude." He smiled toothily, standing up and patting his Flygon on the shoulder. "Maybe I'll catch you around huh? Unless of course I end up getting eaten by some gruesome feral Pokémon!"

I rolled my eyes. "We can but hope." Xander croaked his agreement, training his forever-blank gaze on Adryan.

Instead he laughed and shook his head in amusement. "Knew I'd manage to get a sense of humour out of ya! Victory for me!" He snorted in amusement and climbed aboard the dragon, saluting me before they left. "Catch you around soldier boy!" he called before Irenui took flight, flying low to avoid the Skarmory flock.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes as he left. Even in the brief ten minutes I spoke to him, I found most of the time I spent wanting him to leave. He was annoying, loud and furthermore, he was _extremely_ annoying. I couldn't help but hope I'd never end up spending another five minutes with him again.

Of course fate would twist that round completely on me.


	7. Demon of the Dark

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Demon of the Dark**

_

* * *

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit._ ~ Albert Schweitzer

* * *

_"Always listen to the advice of others. Then ignore it and make your own mistakes. When you use another's advice alongside what you yourself have learnt, that's when you truly begin to advance as a trainer." _

- Cynthia Rivers, 43rd Sinnoh League Champion & 21st World Champion._ (March 29th, 3012)  
_

* * *

Route a hundred and three made me realise how truly unprepared I was for any sort of journey, regardless of what I'd learnt. I had managed to avoid all the trainers along the path once they understood Xander was still too naive at battling, and thankfully they'd told me to battle a few more wild creatures before I bothered trying to fare my luck in trainer battles. A few even suggested I catch another Pokémon, just so I could have them train against each other. It was a good idea.

But my main problem fell into the passage across the route; there was a large body of water covering the path completely. The nearby sea that stretched around Slateport trickled down into this large river, ending in a small lake east of Oldale Town. While it was an impressive sight; to watch the waves wash over each other and the various indigenous Pokémon to leap from the water's depths, it still didn't help me cross.

Regardless, I let Xander out and sat down on the bank as he happily waddled into the water and began drifting along its surface. He had no idea we currently had to get across the river, and didn't seem to care at that point either.

I briefly considered getting him to swim across with me, but quickly abolished the thought. The rapids were going to be too strong for me to navigate, let alone a small creature of his size, regardless of his natural affinity for water. We needed another creature; one that could fly across these gaps, or swim across them and be able to hold us on their back.

I needed another Pokémon.

In that though, I suffered the earlier problem I had realised; catching another Pokémon would mean training another, making sure it knew and trusted me enough to sit on its back while it sum or flew. Hell, _I_ had to trust it enough to sit on its back in such circumstances.

I ended up simply watching Xander for a good while until a familiar voice greeted my ears.

"You know, staring at the water isn't going to make it part for you. Unless you've got magical powers or something..."

I rolled my eyes as Adryan began walking towards me. Of course it would have been my luck to encounter the annoying goon twice in one day. I could tell he obviously meant well... it was just that he annoyed me to no end in the mean time.

"Be quite cruel of you to stand on that Lotad of yours and get him to swim across," he mentioned conversationally as he sat down beside me, himself too staring at my Pokémon swimming in the water. "What was his name again? Oh, right! Xander!"

My Pokémon bobbed his head out of water and looked in our direction as he heard his name. It made me smile, knowing that I had managed to train him enough to respond even when someone else called out his name. The problem still remained in teaching him to fight at high standards.

I saw Adryan smile at me from the corner of my eye as he stretched his arms forwards. "So how many other Pokémon you got? I'm guessing they've gotta be nothing like a Lotad if you needed help in training him... so no grass or water types."

I stared at him, briefly considering outright lying. Instead I opted to tell him the truth, knowing that with my luck, he would have wanted to see them. "He's my only Pokémon. I've only been travelling for a week."

"No shit..." Adryan whispered contemplatively. "So you're just waiting here, thinking of how to cross the water? Not letting your Lotad swim about like I thought?"

I shook my head before frowning and biting my bottom lip. "Both actually. I thought he could do with a swim while I thought about what to do." I stopped and stretched slightly, trying to find a cooler spot for my body to rest in. I glanced sideways at Adryan and noticed him sat, perfectly happy in his trench coat and scarf, looking completely unbothered by the heat. "How can you be wearing _that_ in this weather?" I asked in a drawn out groan, resisting the urge to fan myself with a hand. There I was with sweat matting my forehead, and he didn't even have a single bead on his! It was truly unfair.

He grinned and shrugged before letting out a small laugh. "My mother's always been a fire type enthusiast. The whole time I grew up, the amount of fire types we had always kept the house as hot as a sauna. Seriously, this weather's like being in a _fridge_ compared to my home." He laughed as my jaw dropped, understanding how strange it sounded. "Tell ya, if you grew up with me, you'd be running round at the moment trying to stay warm!"

I frowned and pushed hair from my face as I considered the idea. Personally, I think I would have melted by the age of three, and have been nothing more than a steaming pile of goo on the carpets, forever bubbling in the heat.

Curse Hoenn and its forever-summer heat.

I shook my head once more. "Why'd you call me 'soldier-boy' when you left earlier?" I asked, worried that he may have somehow known my true past. Then again, my past was his future...

Now _that_ was a mind-fuck in itself.

"I _did_ tell you my name," I pressed, watching as another grin formed on his face. He seemed to take everything as a large laugh, and it was beginning to irk me. The fact that I'd grown up in such a serious world was something of a mixed bag for me; on the one hand, I appreciated everyone that could lay back and be rid of seriousness for a while. On the other, I couldn't deal with people that seemed to throw seriousness out the window.

"Hey, don't like it; don't dress like one." He shrugged once more, chuckling as Xander bobbed up along the water's surface again. "Tell ya what," he said as he turned to face me. "Come with me, help me explore Altering Cave, and I'll give you a lift across this river here."

I followed where he was pointing, finding an old cavern in my line of sight. It seemed to be the remains of a mining pit; as the hole that lead into it was almost completely on the floor. Shrubbery covered most of the surrounding area, and the cave tip was only just visible over some larger plants. It meant the cave lead underground, where any number of vicious beasts could be hiding.

"Why would you offer to help me?" I asked him, not trusting the help he was offering me. "I mean seriously, helping out a novice trainer? It sounds like something someone would do to _groom_ someone who didn't know any better."

It was one of the only times I saw his expression darken and anger boil over his face. "Look, you ungrateful shit," he growled at me venomously. "All I'm doing is trying to be nice and offer help. If you don't want it, fine. But don't accuse me of being something as fucked up as that, alright?"

I nodded, understanding I'd completely overstepped the mark. "I'm sorry," I said truly, watching his face soften and him nod in acceptance. "I'm... not used to people being so freely helpful to each other. Where I'm from, people are more likely to shoot you then they are to offer a hand to help you up."

It was true. Only in our own camps was everyone kind to each other, and that was only under normal circumstances. If Pokémon or people ever attacked, it was always a case of self-preservation. What I told him perfectly described the animosity between different camps; if they saw you, they would most likely shoot you in the leg and leave you for the Pokémon, rather than taking you in and helping you put your life back together.

Which was why it annoyed me more when Adryan laughed at my apology.

"Hey, that's a rough place, sounds like the start to so many rags-to-riches story," he laughed, not noticing me glare at his complete uncaring attitude to my upbringing. "Seriously, where you live still run by the Rockets? Or some other mad group of criminal loons?"

I didn't know who or what the Rockets were, and I couldn't very well tell him the exact circumstances about my upbringing. I suppose I could have if I wanted, to freak him out and scare him away, though something told me he'd see it as a joke and never stop pestering me to come out with equally funny stories.

So I went for the best option; a complete change of subject.

"How comes you treat everything as such a joke?" I demanded with controlled anger. "You can't just ignore the seriousness of a situation completely by laughing it off!"

He shrugged again, shaking his head in amusement. "Look, if you don't learn to laugh at things, you end up twisted, bitter and angry at everyone and everything. I've seen so much stuff on my journey; I've seen people let it change them into shadows of what they once were. So I make sure I keep myself happy through laughter, even if it's just the simple amusement I get through my immaturity." He sighed deeply before plastering another grin on his face. "Laughter is the best medicine you know? I'd rather be happy and piss people off than miserable and accepted by others."

I took his words to heart without ever meaning to. It still didn't feel quite right to me that he maintained no seriousness whatsoever, but I could understand completely what he meant. I'd seen so many people in my time fall into depression because of our living conditions, and I only kept my sanity by focusing completely on every goal I ever set out for myself.

It was probably the first time I ever truly began to question my own happiness.

"Anyway," he said as he jumped to his feet, sending wet mud splashing everywhere. "You know some more about me, I know some more about you. So you wanna explore the cave with me and get a ride, or sit here for another hour or two wondering what to do?"

I weighed up my options and realised that my best bet was spending some more time with him and exploring the cave. Admittedly, the more I spent time with him, the more I began to question whether I was too hasty in forming my opinion of him.

Even if he did have the habit of making me want to strangle him.

"Deal," I accepted as I stood up. His grin widened in triumph as he began to lead me to the cave, stopping only when I glared at him for dragging me away without Xander. He laughed sheepishly and mentioned it was only a test, and that I must have really cared for the Lotad.

It made me realise how much I had changed, and was changing. In my own time I would have left the creature to fend for itself, or killed it myself. And there I was after not even a week of being with him wanting to make sure he was safe and happy.

In truth, it scared me.

* * *

Caves were dark.

It might have seemed like a stupid, obvious notion, but I had never considered just _how_ dark they were until I entered that one. I heard Adryan curse and fumble around in his pack for a torch, mumbling more curses along the way.

The guy truly swore an awful lot.

"Success!" he cried in elation as he pulled out a torch and switch it on, bathing us both in a sickly yellow glow. It focused a large circle on the ceiling above, and quite honestly was only a slight help. "Yeah, it's a bit battered and old," he conceded as if reading my thoughts at that time. "You got one?" he asked as he whirled the light towards me, stopping just by my side so as not blind me.

I blinked hesitantly. How much had Jennifer actually packed into my bag? How unprepared was I for a journey that I'd never even thought of checking for my provisions before hand? I was a solider; trained for years, and yet two weeks in this new place had made me forget years of basic training.

I flipped the pack round and into my hands, searching awkwardly through its contents. I had never realised how much was in there, and marvelled at the space within. It seemed that everything could be compressed brilliantly to fit into the one storage space, regardless of their size and weight.

I was certain somewhere in there I felt a baseball bat.

"Here," I said as I pulled out the flashlight I never knew was there. I marvelled silently at how much I truly loved Jennifer at that point; having seemingly thought out everything. I clicked on the light and scrunched my eyes shut as a blinding beam shot out, easily trumping Adryan's torchlight; for mine was both a brilliant bright white, and at least double the size too.

He blinked once at me with his mouth agape. "Show off," he grumbled in good humour as I pointed the light down a cavern path and probably managed to blind a few Zubat. "You could have just pulled that out in the first place and saved me the embarrassment, you know?"

I grinned at him in the darkness. "Where would the fun in that be?"

He laughed and shook his head, conceding the point. "Still, no need to bring out the mini-sun to outdo me." His voice remained light as we traipsed through the cave, stumbling over the occasional Geodude which would usually grunt at us in annoyance.

"So what you going to be as a trainer?" he asked in interest as we rounded another corner, though his question came from nowhere. "There's loads of different professions you know? Breeding, research, tri-athletes, type specialists, gym challengers, coordinators-"

"'Coordinators'?" I parroted with palpable confusion. I'd never once heard of the term in my life in regards to Pokémon. It made me think of some extremely girly-girl attempting to teach a large group of Ursaring in tutus how to dance daintily.

And then abruptly getting mauled by them all.

"Yeah, never heard of them before?" he replied in bewilderment. I shook my head and he let out an amused grunt. "They train Pokémon to make use of their moves and selves to make themselves look pretty in front of crowds." I snorted at his words, causing him to chuckle. "It's actually not as bad as it sounds. They divide it up well, so you have some people showcasing Pokémon strength, others their beauty, even toughness. It sounds like a wimpy profession, but trust me; I've seen coordinator trained Pokémon take down some of the strongest trainers places have to offer."

He must have noticed my shocked expression as he laughed once more. "It seems strange, I know, but coordinators think on different levels to trainers. Most trainers get their Pokémon to straight up fight each other, or even just strategise to play to a Pokémon's strengths, getting more durable Pokémon to take more hits and the like. Coordinators though think of things most people don't. They train their Pokémon to use offensive fire attacks like Flamethrower as a makeshift shield, some even form domes of ice over themselves to stop fire attacks hitting. The most difficult thing about battling skilled coordinators is their unpredictability; they can improvise new strategies on the fly, no matter the situation." He stopped walking and placed his hands behind his head, casting his torch's glow on the rocks behind him. "Most trainers now try to implement a coordinator's touch into their battles, but it's a _lot_ harder than it looks.

"I mean, tell a Pokémon to make a dome of ice around itself when it's never trained to do so?" He shook his head solemnly. "They might manage it, but they probably won't know how to get rid of it afterwards. They could end up shattering the ice and crushing or impaling themselves on falling chunks of it, or even just suffocating underneath it. Coordinator's Pokémon have to think on their feet as fast as coordinators themselves, otherwise, well-" he pulled a finger across his throat in symbolism.

I stared at him for a moment in bewildered awe. Being a coordinator sounded like a truly worthwhile investment, as it trained the trainer's mind too, but it would have taken far too long for me to get my Pokémon trained enough before my time was up – so to speak. Regardless, Adryan seemed _extremely_ well-informed on the matter.

"Are you a coordinator?" I asked him in wondering. We'd stopped moving on in the cave since he himself stopped moving, so I leant against the wall behind me, keeping my flashlight trained between us.

"Sort of," he conceded with a smirk. "I've got a team specially built for coordinating; one specialist in each area like beauty, and then one jack-of-all-trades. I'm slowly getting all my others to have at least a basic grasp over it."

I nodded in understanding, respecting him a great deal more than I did before. I already gathered he was strong after seeing his Flygon, but after hearing how tough it was to become a coordinator, it was now on another level.

"I don't think I'll become a coordinator just yet," I told him confidently. "What was the one you said before that though? 'Gymers' or something?"

He repeated my words with a laugh, shaking his head as he did so. "_Gym challengers,_" he corrected me. "All over the world there's special places called Pokémon Gyms. There's roughly about twenty in every region like Hoenn. They're used as a status to show how strong you are; the more you have, the stronger a trainer you are. Each gym is run by a leader, who is usually one of the strongest people in the region. They have loads of Pokémon at all different levels, accommodating for trainers of all experience." He grinned once more, trailing his flashlight in lazy, wide loops over the wall. "Once you get eight from one region, you're allowed to challenge their yearly league contest. In the league, each and every trainer that's qualified that year competes against each other, aiming for the top spot. If you win, you get a million poké dollars, plus a chance to challenge that region's Elite Four and reigning champion. As you can guess, they're the five strongest trainers in the whole region; levels above everyone else, so only the best of the best can challenge them."

It sounded like a good path to take. Doubtless if I needed to influence people, I would need a level of respect and authority to utilise. My old life of being a guard soldier was behind me; there was no way I could use that. If I became a strong trainer though, and attempted this league challenge, I could use that to my advantage. If I only needed eight badges, I'd aim for the whole twenty in Hoenn, just in case I needed the extra respect.

"When's the next league held?" I asked inquisitively. Hopefully it would be held before my deadline. If it was afterwards, I'd need to figure something else out.

"Roughly eleven months," Adryan informed me. "The last one just finished a month ago, and the new one's always a month later each year. It works out well like that, otherwise every year people would be using grass and summer types to exploit the summer weather, or ice to exploit winter."

"I'll have a think on it," I said to him. Eleven months was over my limit, I knew that. But if it came to it, I was confident I could use the league as a last-ditch attempt to change things. I was certain that they future could still be changed little by little after my supposed deadline. Even if I could only change it so that Kanto and Johto remained united and took over the whole world, at least it would hopefully be a suitable back up plan. "Once I register as a trainer, I'll decide."

Adryan's eyes widened behind his glasses and he took a surprised step towards me. "You're not registered as a trainer yet?" he exclaimed incredulously, his voice echoing brilliantly in the cave.

I shook my head. "Is that such a bad thing?"

"_Yeah_," he scoffed. "If you're not registered, you're not going to be insured!" He sighed and shook his head at my blank expression. "You're more than aware that on a journey, you and your Pokémon are both going to get hurt and injured, right? Well when you register as a trainer, all your Pokémon health care becomes free, as well as any treatment you might need as a result of training or battling. You won't get treated for liver cancer for free, but as long as you're a trainer, your Pokémon will. If they break an arm or a fin, it's healed for free, understand?" He shook his head once more and flipped the torch into the air, catching it expertly in the darkness. "If you're not registered and you or your Pokémon get injured; you're liable for all the medical fees. Worse still if you battle another trainer; then you're liable for both your and _their _fees!"

I felt my stomach do a complete flip in my gut, instantly thankful that I hadn't battled anyone or anything, save for the stray Electrike. I had to get myself registered as soon as I could.

"There's also the fact that you won't be allowed to have Pokémon walking around in town outside of their balls. If you're not a trainer, you have to pay a few of a least ten grand, all to have _one_ Pokémon walk outside its ball." He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Without a licence, you're also only registered to carry one Pokémon on you, inside its ball. If you're found with more than one on your person, your eligible for an even _bigger_ fine."

I blinked in sheer bewilderment. That was going to be a lot of money I'd have to pay out. My thoughts of getting registered increased tenfold within my own mind.

Adryan seemed to be thinking the same thing as me. "We'll get you to Littleroot a.s.a.p after this, alright? It's not too far-" his words turned into a yelp as something landed heavily in the cave, sounding nothing short of a boulder falling and splitting. Both our flashlights whirled round in the cave, attempting to find the source of the noise.

... and found nothing.

Until something moved behind us. It sounded like soft feet stepping whilst their owner breathed in quick, fast grunts. Our flashlights whirled round on the source, giving us a brief glimpse of a distorted long shadow on the wall, with a creepy thin body and lethally sharp looking claws.

"That did _not_ look like any Pokémon I've ever seen," Adryan whispered in a mixture of fear and adrenaline. "What on earth is hiding in this cave?"

I shrugged, all possible Pokémon coming to my head dismissed in an instant. In the time I was in, people were only just discovering the Pokémon of the far-away region known as Isshu in such current times. With that knowledge, I assumed it would not be anything around of above the fifth-hundredth species of Pokémon known to me.

Which in all honesty, left me truly stumped.

I only just heard Adryan cry a warning before the very shadows themselves leapt at me, knocking me off my feet. I felt the briefest instant of sharp claws and teeth at my arms, and the strange warm scent of dirt before the presence was suddenly gone, leaving me breathless and confused.

"Dude, you alright?" Adryan asked in concern as he rushed to my side. I grunted an unintelligible answer as I felt him help me up before I began dusting myself down whilst checking for damage.

And then cold, hard horror fuelled through me.

Xander's Poké Ball was missing.

I related that information to Adryan, who made sure that I was certain it was on me before the attack before he began thinking of a solution.

"Well, it definitely wasn't human," he whispered in consideration. "No human has the ability to blend with shadows, and _certainly_ can't cast shadows as weird as that! Must be a Pokémon," he concluded. I saw him scowl in the darkness as he pulled a ball off his belt and flung it forwards, making my ears ring as the explosion rung through the cave.

Irenui looked slightly cramped in the cave as she stretched her wings and took up most of the cavern.

"Irenui, make a sonar scan of the caverns, look for something that's similar to a Poké Ball," he commanded with expert efficiency.

The Flygon opened her mouth and went through all the motions of screeching, although no sound came out. I raised an eyebrow in curiosity and looked at Adryan. "Can Flygon actually use sonar effectively? I thought only bat-like creatures could."

He shook his head and cupped his hands over his mouth before he spoke. "Anything that can learn the supersonic skill can use it for echolation with enough practice. Do try not to talk when she's using it though, it tends to disrupt what they've doing."

I nodded and waited in silence as the Pokémon continued her hunt for my own. Adryan's words made me wonder if I could ever train my Pokémon to use skills like such, or even think of something that most hadn't thought of.

She stopped with a flap of her wings and craned her neck over to her trainer. "How Ireni's search go?" I asked, having still not figured out how to pronounce her name.

"E-ren-neh-wee," Adryan corrected me phonetically as he shook his head in amusement. "And yeah, apparently there's a few things that may be similar, though there's at least three that are on the move. They could be anything from spare Poké Balls trainers had dropped to even nuggets of gold. Our best bet is to just search each and every one of them."

Of course nothing in my life would ever be simple.

* * *

Two empty Poké Balls, one everstone and multiple small, impossibly circular rocks later, I was on the verge of giving up. I gave the everstone to Adryan as thanks for helping me out; apparently he had been searching for one for quite some time, and I didn't have a clue what it was used for.

I scowled and went to kick the pebble I saw on the floor, only to notice at the last moment that it had the exact colourations of a Poké Ball. I barely stopped myself in time as I stared, dumbfounded at the contraption. Adryan noticed my sudden change of mood and crept up nearby me, his Flygon's wing-beats creating a pleasant breeze in the otherwise humid cave.

"Something doesn't seem right about this," I whispered in paranoid consideration. Adryan went to object, until I noticed the length of strong tied around the ball, leading off into the darkness. I raised a brow in disbelief as cackling began to echo from deeper within. Something was taunting me with my Poké Ball, leading me into what was no doubt a trap.

I wasn't going to fall for it, yet at the same time, I wasn't going to leave Xander alone. I wondered just how to go about obtaining my Pokémon back before Adryan reached forwards and attempted to grab it, able to only watch in self-annoyance as it was pulled back into the cave with another cackle.

"I think whatever we're dealing with wants us to play a little game," Adryan surmised. He grinned childishly and lunged for the ball again, tsking as it was pulled away yet again.

And so we ended up with Adryan playing chase with my mystery assailant.

Every step we took closer to it made me want to wring its neck more for keeping me apart from Xander like this. When we finally reached the creature at the end, my Poké Ball was flung back at me, and I barely caught it in time. Another cackle came forth from the mystery creature, this time followed by the haunting glow of its eerie eyes as our torches focused on it.

A burp echoed from deep within the darkness, and an old, eaten bone clattered to the floor in front of us.

Adryan raised an eyebrow as he stared at the bone. "Riiighht..."

I however, was more focused on dealing with the Pokémon responsible with kidnapping my own. My torch light focused on it, and I found myself staring at the creature responsible for my attack.

It was barely two feet tall, and covered in a deep, dark purple skin which seemed to absorb all the light around it. Various gems glistened over its back and front, and two large diamonds were where its eyes should have been. It cackled again, revealing a set of sharp fangs, bared at us all. With a menacing laugh it wriggled forwards, teeth bared, claws up in the air, and hips sashaying as it moved.

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. It was just too funny to watch a creature so small and dare I say it – cute – trying to be intimidating. Adryan suddenly clutched at his side as he too began laughing, and I was certain I heard Irenui chuckle herself.

The creature's smile broadened considerably as it noticed our sudden change in mood. It cackled once more and growled darkly before it simply _vanished_ into the wall behind it, creating a wailing, ghostly sound as the very wall itself began to stretch and bend.

I straightened immediately. I didn't know what the Pokémon was, but this was obviously a threat. My hands dove into my bag for some sort of weapon before they gripped around a spherical device which I threw forwards with all my might, whispering in harsh hisses that I would capture the demon and exact my revenge.

Needless to say, I was started when it collided with a ghostly crystal eyeball with all the force of a bowling ball. The creature wailed in pain and fell backwards before the sphere suddenly exploded in a blinding white light, dropping to the floor lightly as it still wriggled.

Only when the light completely faded did I realise what I'd just seen. "What... just happened?" I found myself asking.

Adryan chuckled in shock as he walked up and placed a hand on my shoulder. "You, by some mere _miracle_ of luck, managed to catch yourself a Sableye."

I noticed I was nodded without even meaning to. I'd manage to catch my very first Pokémon by some sheer twist of luck, all by my own merit.

The only problem was I had no idea what exactly a 'Sableye' was, and had no idea of the threat one could pose.


	8. The Prankster Demon

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**The Prankster Demon  
**

_

* * *

Friendship: A building contract you sign with laughter and break with tears_ ~ Unknown

* * *

_"A humourless trainer will have humourless Pokemon. A righteous trainer will have righteous Pokemon. However, the best trainer will befriend different Pokemon with different personalities, and use them better than a single-minded trainer.'_

- Professor Samuel Oak, 34th Kanto League Champion, PHD Pokemon Behaviour, MSc Pokemon and Trainer Interactions, MSc Pokemon Biology_. _(February 23rd, 3002)

* * *

By the time we exited the cave, both of us were exhausted. We hadn't realised how much we'd chased my demonic new Pokémon into the cave, and only realised when we left that we had been in there for over a day.

Only when we made such a realisation did our fatigue set in.

Along the way, I'd listened to Adryan light-heartedly scold me about capturing a second addition for my team. While it was in no way intentional; I had no idea what I'd grasped from my bag until the ball had exploded and caught it. He had just laughed it off, telling me to be extra careful until we got to Littleroot. Apparently we could get there in nearly two days, if we made good time.

Regardless, at that moment in time, we'd set up camp, the glow of the fire our only light within the evening's darkness. Irenui had curled up nearby Adryan and fallen asleep, snoring in gentle quietness for something so large. Adryan himself spent a lot of time staring at his phone with a frown across his face, spinning it round in one hand. Apparently it had run out of charge whilst we were in the cave. He'd mentioned that he had an electric type that could charge it for him, but she wasn't on his person then. He also went on to explain to me how much they needed to be trained in order to do such a small task, supposedly people would attempt to get electric types to do the same, and end up overloading and blowing the electrical systems, often electrocuting the trainer too.

Being a trainer was a lot harder than I had first thought. So much for my first impressions of pointing and telling the things to attack on command, I'd never considered everything they did on command needed to be trained first.

"Expecting a phone call?" I asked as my hands plucked the remaining feathers from a Staravia Irenui had captured for us. Truthfully, the silence was beginning to bore me, in the week I'd spent on my own, I'd found a strange longing for human company. Now presented with it, the sudden silence broken on by a crackling fire didn't seem to sit well with me.

"Could say that," he said as he flipped the phone again, catching it and stashing it away within his trenchcoat. "A friend of mine was looking after a Pokémon egg that was meant to hatch into a Pokémon I've been wanting for a _long_ time. She's kept the egg on hold for me, but given the offers she's getting for it, I wouldn't blame her if she sold it on." He whistled once, raking a hand through his hair. "Some of them are offering enough to let her retire now and live comfortably. Even more impressive considering she's only in her late twenties."

My eyebrows shot into my hairline at that. Just how much was this creature worth? My brain began to spin at high speeds in order to figure out what it could possibly be, but I came out empty handed, so to speak. I began to wonder just how Adryan had managed to get a friendship so strong that she'd look pass all the offers just for him. Had he saved her life? Saved one of her Pokémon's lives? Maybe they were even lovers?

I didn't know, and that bothered me. More and more I was beginning to realise that not knowing something irked me. Living a life blindly following orders was wearing off easily, and every possible piece of information was grasped at greedily.

"How many Pokémon do you have?" I asked him, genuinely wondering. He'd mentioned a few Pokémon, and that he didn't keep them on him – supposedly he kept two on him at all times, Irenui and his sea-faring Pokémon, but he'd never mentioned an exact number.

He smiled past the fire, which refracted strangely in his glasses. "I've got sixteen at the moment. If I get the one I'm after, then I'll have a grand total of seventeen." He smirked again, watching as my jaw seemed to unhinge from my skull. "You see, some places hold competitions for one specific type. So I've got one Pokémon from each type range. If they're dual types, I judge it on their primary element, so if I were you, I'd class Xander as my water type."

I filed the knowledge away subconsciously, understanding his motives. Having one of each type could prove to be strategically advantageous, no matter what situation, I would hold an advantage. The only problem would be training up seventeen different Pokémon, all to the same level of experience. If I had more time than my limit, it would be a good idea. Otherwise, I was probably better set having a limit of at most ten, if not something as small as six.

"You really are a novice trainer, aren't you?" Adryan noted with a large touch of humour. I looked up with a defeated expression, unable to argue it in the slightest. I knew how to kill almost every Pokémon I came across in a number of ways, but I was clueless when I was told to train the creature up to attack on my command. And it seemed my lack of competence with training was extremely palpable.

"I've been thinking," he said out of the blue, distracting himself with removing his coat and folding it up beneath him. I caught a quick glimpse of a tattoo on his hip before he quickly pulled his top back down, sheltering it from my view. "You really don't seem to know what you're doing. No offence or nothing, but most trainers your age are either powerful in their own right, or, well... dead." He shrugged simply, unable to avoid the blunt truth of the situation. "Anyway." He shook his head expressively. "I need to get to Rustboro – family matters," he explained with a circular fan of his right hand. "If you want to take the gym challenge, you'll find the first gym that's really on your level there. If you don't want to be a gym challenger, Rustboro has plenty of connections to nearby towns where you can start a number of careers.

"So I need to get to Rustboro, and your best bet is to go there. So how about I stick with you until then, help you out and mentor you?" He shrugged awkwardly after suggesting it, as if to roll the serious weight of the question off his shoulders.

My tongue caught in my throat, brain not knowing what to tell it to say. Eventually words found my throat as I asked, "Why do you want to help _me_?"

He smiled somewhat sheepishly. "It's one of those unspoken rules among trainers. Don't know how long ago it started, but now days most experienced trainers will help a novice one, teach them the ropes sorta thing. It must have been a government initiative actually," he mused as he rubbed at the stubble growing on his chin. "I mean, since it started, the number of novice trainer deaths has shot down quite a lot."

My head nodded of its own accord as my brain registered his words. He had missed out one major point though; my actual question. "You completely avoided answering me though," I pointed out with a smirk.

"So I did," he admitted with a sheepish grin. He sighed, obviously wondering just what to say – or how to say it. "Well, tell the truth, you look like you need the help. If anything, you look lost – like you don't belong in this world." I forced myself not to laugh at how true his words actually were. "More than that though," he admitted, scratching an arm uncomfortably. "I've wanted to mentor people before... but I think I've annoyed them all." He laughed somewhat solemnly, and I found myself staring at the fully plucked bird in my lap, face hiding in my admitted shame of agreeing with them. "And I know you felt – or feel the same way," he added without any accusation in his voice.

My head shot up, arguments to the contrary ready. However, I caught sight of his raised brow and chuckled self-consciously, unable to lie to his face like that. I resigned myself to setting the Staravia up on a spit above the fire, finding the cooking bird extremely interesting.

"It's alright," he reassured me. "I can't actually blame you; _I_ find _me_ annoying sometimes!" He laughed, twisting something serious into humour again, what he would always do. He looked away, cursing as he tried to pry a boot from one of his feet. "But, whenever anyone else got annoyed with me, they'd make excuses to get away as quickly as they could. _You_ however-" he focused his gaze on me suddenly, and I found myself staring at the cooking food in attempt to avoid meeting his gaze, "- never did anything of the like. Even if I annoyed ya, you still gave me the time of day, even helped me to explore Altering Cave. Which, I may add, after accusing me of trying to groom you, seems extremely strange to agree to."

I couldn't help but laugh at the truth in his words. He laughed too, trailing into an awkward sigh. "So I guess I wanted to help ya as thanks for putting up with me. Either you decided I couldn't be all bad, or you just stop listening to me after a while. Regardless, it's well... a thank you," he drawled into a whisper, finding the ground extremely interesting.

Awkward silence hung between us for a moment. Strangely enough, I found myself wanting to break the tension between us with humour – something which I'd never really attempted before, in all honesty.

"Good thing you weren't just hoping to protect me," I said, drawing his gaze back up from the ground. "With those noodle arms of yours, I doubt you'd be able to beat a _Cleffa_ in an arm wrestle."

He snorted, appreciating the sarcastic reprieve. "Hey, don't insult the Cleffa. Those things are lethal strong!"

I rolled my eyes, coating the food before me in a number of spices. It would take another half hour to cook fully, and I didn't want to spend the rest of the time in silence. The lack of knowledge about the creature occupying the second Poké Ball on my bandolier burned a hole deep within my brain, which slowly felt like it was growing heavier on my shoulders. I had to know more about it. "So what can you tell me about Sableye?" I asked conversationally, fully aware that the book in my bag could provide good information about the creature.

Adryan snorted. "Well _I've_ wanted one for a long time. Something about them being under two feet tall, and still being ghostly prankster demons makes me laugh – and you know how easily amused I am." He laughed as he poked the ground with a stick, shooting me a half-hearted jealous glare. He rubbed the back of his head, face screwed in concentration. "Urm, not sure I know all that much about them really. They're creatures of the dark, but they also retain ghost qualities." My eyebrows must have met my hairline at that. My second Pokémon was not only a ghost – something that could be the most dangerous trained killer – but a dark type too? Creatures of darkness were notoriously rebellious and individual, preferring to follow their own instincts, rather than the commands of a trainer.

My heart sank deep into my chest, realisation hitting me that I'd have to spend a _lot_ of time and effort training the creature.

"Sableye are best off battling in the dark – even the shadows," Adryan explained with deep concentration – obviously trying to recall buried knowledge. "When they're in the dark, they have access to their ghost abilities. So only in darkness can they become intangible – in the light, they'll be as solid as any other Pokémon." He shrugged once more, seemingly at the end of his knowledge. "Oh, and they're notorious for being evil little buggers that enjoy tricking people as a form of attention seeking." He smirked fiendishly, and I could see him wanting to begin cackling at my impending misfortune. "So don't be surprised if you leave it out, and it runs off with your underwear or something."

I gave him a sceptical look at that, but said nothing on the matter. My mind was busy instead with wondering at how I'd never heard of the creatures before. Obviously it liked dark areas, which were predominantly caves like the one we'd found it in. In my time, we didn't occupy caves much, knowing they were often lairs for powerful or nocturnal Pokémon. It was safest to stay away from them, and that could have lead to my lack of knowledge of the creature – I was never needed to infiltrate a cave.

More and more I began to consider the life I'd led, and how different it was in comparison to the normal within my new times. Only then did it begin to set in how much I'd have to adapt in order to survive in this new world.

Learn, adapt and blend in, otherwise you'd doom the world. It really was a case of no pressure.

* * *

Dawn broke the next morning whilst I was busy washing in a nearby stream. Xander was complacently bobbing alongside me, occasionally letting out a quack of contentment. I had briefly considered letting out the Sableye with me whilst I washed, though quickly decided against it. I wouldn't trust a dark or ghost Pokémon anywhere near me if I had no clothes on, not until I'd fully trained them. Granted clothes may have been a feeble attempt at armour, but even the smallest barrier between their attacks and my skin made me feel comfortable.

When I was fully packed, clothed and ready, I began to consider letting out the creature. Adryan was still asleep, and judging by the depth of his snores, he wasn't going to wake anytime soon. His Flygon had curled up beside him, and he was using the back of her neck as a pillow. Inwardly I decided to make sure I could capture something large enough that I could use as such, though preferable something soft and comfortable to sleep on. While most bedding was made from the downy feathers of birds, only a few creatures themselves could be slept on – most were often frail and bony – as I found out often when I ate different species.

Xander croaked as he nudged my ankles, re-alerting me to the fact I'd yet to release the creature. I nodded in the Lotad's direction as I called the Sableye out, preparing myself for the ghostly creature to attack.

When the light of the ball receded, the Sableye hissed at the sunlight, placing both arms over its face protectively. It made me realise I'd made the right choice in letting the creature out in daytime; no doubt if I let it out the night before, it would have ran away or shredded me to pieces.

With another hiss it looked over at me, diamond eyes narrowing on my figure. Like when I'd first met it, it raised its skeletal arms above its head and advanced, teeth bared in threat. I tried my best to fight the laugh building in my throat as it advanced – the creature just looked so hilarious, given it's tiny stature attempting to be intimidating. Xander however, growled throatily at the ghostly creature, warning it into submission.

The Sableye lowered its arms and cocked its head to the side, reminding me incredibly of the alien movies I'd watched whilst growing up. Just because we were in camps didn't mean we didn't have access to technology; in fact, some had been developed further than the like I'd seen during the decades of my journey. It seemed to sniff at the air, and I heard a distinctly alien growl erupting from its stomach.

The creature had the self-awareness to look abashed, and quickly wrapped its clawed hands around its stomach, offering a fanged grin. It was hungry.

I reached into my pack and brought out some of the remains of the Staravia we'd ate the night before. Xander wasn't interested in it, much like the night before, though the Sableye's diamond eyes seemed to widen in anticipation. Holding the food out as my legs bent into a crouch, I felt like I was setting myself up for a perfect attack from either of the Pokémon around me. The Sableye advanced curiously, eyes focused on the meat in my palm. Slowly it made its way towards the food, where it sniffed at it again.

And then it bit my hand.

I cursed and jerked back as the creature cackled, catching the meat I'd inadvertently thrown into the air. Light dropped from one of its diamond eyes momentarily before it suddenly _appeared_ before my bag, and promptly began chewing on the rocks I'd found in the cave.

The tiny demon cackled in delight as it began eating the rocks, not noticing my approach. My hand reached out to pat its head, fighting past my instincts to grab and wring its neck. The creature hissed at the abrupt touch, though cared little when it realised I wasn't going to steal the food back.

"So..." I said uncertainly, wondering just what to do next. I had no idea how to check the gender of a ghost, and even less knowledge of how to handle one. Instead I ended up saying simply, "You eat rocks."

The creature cackled once more, and even the usually impassive Xander seemed to laugh at my statement. All the rocks gone, the Sableye began to lick its claws before letting out an abrupt burp.

I couldn't help but laugh at the sound. From such a tiny creature, I'd expected a small sound. It was that, except it sounded like the Sableye had been inhaling helium beforehand. I wasn't sure whether it was an actual burp or a squeak, but it made me laugh regardless. The Sableye noticed this and joined in, seemingly enjoying making me laugh.

All of a sudden, it stood up and lifted a claw as if to say _I have an idea_. I found myself transfixed, wondering just what the little creature would do. I had never considered before that every Pokémon could have distinct personalities; I'd only really met Xander and Whiskers, both of whom were extremely laid back, almost to the point of apathy. I watched it skulk over to Adryan, keeping an eye trained on Irenui apprehensively as it approached. I scolded a hiss at my new Pokémon, instructing it to stop and leave him alone, afraid it would butcher him in his sleep. Instead, the Sableye grabbed one of Adryan's legs...

... and began to hump it.

I found myself caught in silent astonishment for a moment. The creature was most definitely male, given the actions it was performing. Adryan snored loudly in his sleep, kicking out the leg which the Sableye was busy with. Unable to control myself anymore, I burst out laughing at the sight of it. Seemingly satisfied with making me laugh, the Sableye skulked over to the Flygon sleeping peacefully. It placed a claw to its face in thought, tapping it against its cheek before it suddenly produced a pen – from where, I would never find out – and began to scribble across the dragon's face.

Adryan was right when describing Sableye; they most certainly did play tricks for attention. I growled for my Pokémon to come back to me, but it ignored me in favour of rifling through Adryan's backpack. It let out a gleeful cackle as it found a pair of underpants and ever-so-carefully slipped them over Irenui's tail enough to make them look like a flag on a flagpole.

The trickster demon cackled once more, and I felt for certain he'd woken the dragon, given the snort that emerged from her nostrils. I hastily recalled the creature, watching as it disappeared in a beam of pure red energy. By my feet, Xander huffed in disapproval at either my actions or the Sableye's.

"Maybe we should wake them now," I decided, attempting to distract myself from thinking too much on Xander's opinions. I looked around, trying to find something to carry water in, aiming to soak Adryan in attempt to wake him. A moment later I hit my head in realisation of my stupidity and crouched down next to Xander. "Mind spraying him with a bit of cold water?" I asked, pointing towards the still-snoring human.

Xander croaked happily in agreement before he spat a small stream of water at the trainer. To Irenui's credit, she was awake and ready before the water had even hit Adryan, her wings shielding him from the dribble of water. Her eyes narrowed in obvious anger – which was pretty hilarious given the Sableye's scrawls over her face – and a low, guttural growl emerged from her.

I backed away, knowing I truly stood no chance against her. Even if I had a rifle in my hands, taking down a dragon would have been _extremely_ difficult. Dragons were all cold-blooded, giving them a weakness to cold, but I doubted Xander could produce any effective ice attacks.

Thankfully though, the dragon snorted at me and my Pokémon before she woke Adryan by dragging her tongue across his face. He snorted and attempted to bat her away in his sleep, leading to her repeating the action again. I found myself fascinated; it was like the way a dog would wake its master – except in this case, the dog was a six foot dragoness.

"Huhwha?" Adryan grunted unintelligibly as he woke, placing his hands on Irenui's face as he sat up, squinting at the nearby surroundings. "Oh, morning," he said more coherently, blinking his eyes awake. Moving himself from Irenui, he picked up his glasses and put them on, aiming to stand up with the same movement. However, he abruptly shrieked and fell instantly, only just saved from meeting the floor with his face by Irenui's quick movements.

As he was helped to stand, my eyes caught sight of the string tied around his legs, almost inconspicuously. If nothing else, that Sableye was one sly little demon.

* * *

"What is _that_?"

A short while later, I found myself staring at a sea creature that looked as if it belonged in the deep seas, hunting large creatures. It was all blue, save for the large grey shell over its back, although darker blue spots decorated its body. Four fins spread out from under its stomach, though the front two were considerably larger than those at the back. A long neck grew up into its horned head that had small, curled ears, and it stared at me with deep set, somewhat distrustful eyes.

"_She_ is Siren," Adryan proudly informed me. He walked up to her and rubbed a hand across her muzzle, bringing forth a cry of elation from the Pokémon. Her eyes shut and she rubbed back against his chest with enough control as to not knock him back. "She's a Lapras."

I stared at the Pokémon in bewilderment. I'd heard of Lapras, but never encountered one before. In my time, they had been hunted to extinction. Though the tales I had heard of them were grievously exaggerated, such as that they had horrible fangs as long as their necks, and could tower over a Gyarados in height. Obviously those were only tales to make people deem hunting them to extinction a good thing.

He petted the Lapras once more before she turned around, sinking in the water enough to allow Adryan to climb on her back without getting wet. He hopped on instantly, finding a niche within her spiked shell to sit down. After a moment he looked at me in impatience, tapping a hand against his leg. "So, getting on or what? She isn't going to drown you while I'm with her."

His jokey smile didn't really reassure me. Taking a breath, I climbed onto the Pokémon with considerably less grace than Adryan, and found myself wobbling even as I attempted to stand on the unmoving creature. Adryan laughed and rolled his eyes, reaching out a hand to steady me before he guided me to sit beside him, allowing me to hold onto a spike for safety, whilst being able to see fully off her back.

"C'mon Siren," said Adyran. He whistled once and the Pokémon replied with an elated cry, jerking into motion. She swam almost seamlessly through the water, and I found myself staring at her flippers passing to and fro beneath us.

"So you often scribble on Pokémon for fun?" Adryan asked me. I looked up at his light tone, finding a smile plastered on his face. "Cause if you're going to do that a second time, make sure you warn me first. _I'm_ the one who has to wash it off her, and she isn't exactly the biggest fan of baths, let me tell you."

I shook my head, refusing to laugh at the mental image I got of Adryan washing Irenui in a large bubble bath, the dragon wearing a crown of bubbles. "I let out the Sableye for a bit. He ate some of the rocks I found yesterday, bit my hand and scribbled on Irenui."

Adryan stared at me for a moment. "So _you_ put my underwear on her tail then?"

"No!" I shook my head emphatically, unable to stop the laughter this time. "That was him too. As well as tying you up."

Adyran shook his head, laughing at the madness of it all. "I knew Sableye were evil buggers, I just didn't realise how far they'd go."

I shrugged, watching as the land slowly disappeared behind us. "He's an evil little prankster demon, intent on getting as much laughs as possible." I looked back at Adryan, smirking. "So really, he's like you. Except he's funny on _purpose_."

"Ack! You wound me!" Adryan exclaimed dramatically, placing his hands over his heart. I scoffed and looked away, shaking my head as he laughed at his own joke. "Why not let him out for a bit? It's not like he can cause much trouble out here," he said, opening his arms to gesture towards the water surrounding us.

I nodded, agreeing as I called the demonic prankster from his ball. The Sableye jumped around excitedly, openly cackling at Adryan. He jumped about more before he scaled Siren's neck lithely, climbing to her head without protest. Once atop her cranium he cackled once more and begun to launch eerie beams of light into the water, cackling more and more as the fish within began to bump into each other, the nearby rocks, or even leap and get stuck atop the rocks.

"Stop that!" I hissed, standing with wobbly sea legs. However, I managed to grab the Sableye by his ear, forcing myself to ignore the eerie cold texture of his skin. I yanked him down from Siren's head, gripping him in my arms as I sat back down. He struggled for a moment, hissing and gnawing on my arms before he realised he wasn't going anywhere. Reluctantly he calmed, sitting in my lap much like a sulky child.

"Hello there, little demonic urchin," Adryan said sweetly as he leant forwards and tapped the Sableye on the snout. The Pokémon hissed and lashed out, attempting to slice Adryan's finger or face from his body. Instead, it caused Adryan to laugh as he sat back in place. "Dark and ghost Pokémon _are_ hard to train, but they're some of the most protective creatures there are." He nodded towards the Pokémon in my arms, making me note of its reluctance to now attack me. "He's already getting used to you – but don't expect to have trained him perfectly anytime soon. But darks, ghosts and psychics all form extremely strong bonds with their trainers, and will go to any lengths to protect them. The only ones who are more protective are dragons, but that's probably because they're so scarce in the wild."

I nodded, filing the information away. The creature in my arms was still grumbling, though now seemed to be interesting itself with watching the lumineon and magikarp leap from the water's surface. Given that he'd already tried to slice Adryan to pieces, it made me wonder just whether or not the Pokémon was actually trying to defend _me_ or not.

"Got a name for him yet then?" Adryan asked me.

I shrugged. My mind went back to how quietly he'd crept along to play his pranks on Adryan and Irenui, and how low key he'd been in approaching them. Everything about his movements were discreet, even down to the way he was trying to slyly get out of my arms' grip. My mind came to one logical conclusion. "Loki."

Adryan stared at me for a moment before he chuckled. "Perfect for a little prankster. Though naming him after a God of pranks is probably going to make him _worse_, if anything."

I blinked, surprised at the new information. "I actually just meant 'low key' – as in that he's discreet," I admitted sheepishly, feeling a blush erupt over my face. Loki looked up and cackled at me, seemingly happy with his name, though finding my reasoning for it hilarious.

"Oh, right," Adryan said, looking at me as if I were mad. His face twisted further and further, until he was finally unable to hold in the laughter that erupted full force from his mouth. "S-sorry," he apologised through shaky breaths, waving a hand through the air. "Either way, that name is _perfect_ for him."

I stopped in stupefaction, wondering just what he was talking about. I began to realise he was laughing at my face, and that Loki too was staring up at me, cackling his little ghostly-demonic laugh. In confusion I lifted a hand to my face and wiped it against my cheek, able to see the resultant pen that smeared over my hand.

My face was covered in scribbles, and I had no idea when the demonic creature had even accomplished such a feat.

Discreet prankster God indeed.


	9. Becoming a Trainer

_**Pokemon**_

_**Regret**_

**Becoming a Trainer**

* * *

_The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step ~ _Confucius

**-O-O-O-**

_"I can still remember the day I first became a trainer; the grass was green, the sky was blue, and my pants were brown with the realisation of what the world is truly like."_

- Blake Rogers, 39th Johto League Champion. _(June 16th, 3011)_

**-O-O-O-**

Honestly, Littleroot Town was not what I was expecting.

Given that Adryan had told me it was a little town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by lush forests and greenery, I found myself amazed when we reached a large town, with large modern buildings towering above the city's limits. We'd passed over Oldale Town completely, with Adryan electing to fly us both over on Irenui, as there was apparently some sort of quarantine set over the town. Apparently a chemical or gas had leaked within the town's small laboratory, and they were reacting as if the plague had come to snare them up completely.

Nestled within the north western corners of the town was a large steel complex with a multitude of bay windows decorating its semi-circular frame. It was three stories high and I could see a number of solar panels covering the roof. Behind was a large open forest, which Adryan told me branched into smaller, specialist areas for every pokémon within to be looked after.

Within my mind, I built up an image of the professor in charge. I told myself he would have had to been extremely experienced to handle so many pokémon at once, as well as keeping them all safe and stopping them from fighting and preying on each other whilst in his grounds.

We stepped towards the large doors guarding the laboratory's entrance which opened with a soft hum. There was a dull tune that could have only been described as elevator music that reached our ears within the large room we walked into. Within there were a number of chairs set to the right hand side, as well as a small bookcase. On the left were doors leading off into various other parts of the place, and dead in front of us was a desk with a slim brunette woman typing at a computer in a bored manner.

"Hello?" I walked towards the desk, drawing the woman out of her computer-stupor with my greeting. She spun round on her chair and glanced me over, taking in my no doubt messy and world-weary appearance.

She however wore a crisp black suit with a white blouse underneath, unbuttoned enough to show her cleavage. Tearing my eyes away, I wondered whether she was actually hired for her skill at computer literacy or just for something the professor could ogle.

"How may I help you sir?" she asked politely. Obviously I must not have looked as bad as I thought, or the woman was completely professional. She pressed a pen to her lips, tapping it against the pink lipstick coating them.

"I need to register as a trainer," I told her, leaning on the desk slightly. "Do I need to see the professor or-"

"You will need to see him," she interrupted me, even as she pulled open a desk drawer and rummaged through. "But first you'll need to complete these forms," she explained, handing me a stack of at least ten sheets of paper stapled together. "Most details are all recorded electronically now, but we still need paper copies as back up." She handed me a pen and smiled. "Hoenn's electrical power sources aren't exactly indestructible after all."

I nodded, thanking her as I made way to a chair and sat down. The words on the paper blurred together in my boredom, and I slowly made my way through them. I glanced over at Adryan, who was busying himself trying to find something interesting to read. In the mean time I filled out the details I could, stopping at a certain few. Could I give my real age? They wanted my birth date; I couldn't very well say I was born sixty-three years from the current year, could I? I frowned, giving my real birth day and month, though worked out the appropriate year. After that it became more confusing, and I waited until Adryan sat beside me to ask him for help.

"I need help with some of this," I admitted, tapping the pen against the paper stack. He glanced over at me and lifted a brow, nodding for me to elaborate. "I don't have a home address, or a next of kin, for one."

He looked at me blankly for a moment. "What do you mean you have no home address?" he asked, taking the papers from me and reading them through.

"I, uh-" my brain stopped short, thinking of a decent enough excuse. What could I say? 'My home isn't built for another few decades,' didn't seem like a very believable tale, after all. "Where I was staying last got destroyed," I explained, choosing my words carefully. "An onix burrowed underneath the street and completely wrecked it; there's nothing left."

He nodded, crossing a leg and leaning the paper on it. On the small box wanting my address, he simply wrote _'n/a'_. Of _course_ it would have been such a simple answer that stumped me.

"Next of kin?" he asked, tapping the pen against his leg.

I shook my head. "I'm an orphan." That at least, was true. "Never really knew my parents, so I've got no family that I know of. Everyone else is dead."

"Sorry," he said reflexively. He stared at it a moment longer before scrawling across the boxes with haste. "I'll put myself down as that, if that's alright with you?" he asked, even as he filled in his own details. "It's just so that if someone finds you dead somewhere in the wilderness, they can at least call someone to let them know, and then they make all the hard decisions." He looked at me, eyes serious and hard behind his glasses. "If you die, your next of kin has to decide what to do with your Pokémon."

I nodded, understanding his meaning. He clicked his tongue, scanning through the rest of the form, writing in a few details here and there for me. He stopped and glanced up, beginning to ask questions for the rest.

"Okay. Hometown?"

I frowned. Officially, my home base was named 'area seventy-four'. Somehow, I doubted that would be recorded anywhere. My mind raced, trying in vain to remember the location's name. I knew it was near Lavaridge somewhere...

"Kismet Plains," I answered, chewing my inside lip. I wasn't a hundred percent sure on the name, but given that Adryan nodded and included it reassured me the location was real.

"Okay," he whispered, lifting another sheet to glance at it. "Date you became a trainer's done, so is your current pokémon," he spoke, more to himself than me. "Age: seventeen?" He looked up and offered a grin. "Heh, by your age I was already trekking through Sinnoh."

I fixed him with a level stare. "Congratulations. Have a peanut."

He snorted, shaking his head in amusement. "Peanuts are gross," he countered, flicking me on the head with the pen. "Alright, parents' names?" he asked, looking back up to me.

I shrugged. My mother died in childbirth, and my father was killed by a ninjask when I was four. I related these details to him, and he nodded in understanding, saying nothing on the matter as he filled in the boxes with simple 'unknown's.

"Alright." He nodded, flicking through the pages to the final one. "Final few details, then you can just sign it." He glanced between me and the paper, grinning once again. "Region of birth?"

At least I could answer that honestly. "Hoenn."

He scribbled the answer into a box. "Criminal record?"

Yes, I'm a murderer, cannibal and trained tactically enough to kill everyone in this room in sixteen different ways. "No."

"Ah," he grunted, tsking disapprovingly. "Shoplifters and druggies like you should always admit to their crimes," he chided me, glaring at me in good humour. "If you're going to kill me in my sleep, I'd at least like to know you've done it before. That way I can turn you in and escape with my life!"

I smirked at him. "And where would the fun in that be?"

He chuckled. "Sadist." He flicked the papers again, staring at the answers given. "Gender?" he asked. He looked at me as I lifted an eyebrow in bemusement. "Right, female," he said, thankfully circling the correct, _'male'_ choice. "Orientation? Definitely lesbian."

I sighed, and snatched the papers back off him. "That wasn't in there, you dolt," I said as I smacked him across the head with the papers. "Besides, why would it be? Unless I've been murdered by a group of savage females, and they decided that I must have slept with them all and been murdered in revenge." I signed the very end of the papers, smirking as Adryan laughed to himself. I quickly glanced through the papers once more, making sure he hadn't changed anything or made a joke somewhere in there. My pokémon list was unsurprisingly sparse, and I saw the small circled 'no' under a question I hadn't seen. I read it twice before glancing up at Adryan as we walked to the reception desk. "What's a 'level three risk' pokémon?"

He laughed once more at me, this time in disbelief. "Where were you raised? In a stream by a pack of mightyena?" he quipped, chuckling at his own joke. "Level three risks are pokémon that can be viewed as dangerous towards whole town communities. Most of the time they're psychics, ghosts or dragons. Irenui's one because she can create and hide within sandstorms. Level four are those that can be destructive if untrained properly, like most dragons, as well as a few more powerful pokémon like metagross and tyranitar. Level fives are the most dangerous; they're things like gyarados and onix, that could flatten a whole town even if they didn't mean to."

It made sense, yet at the same time, it didn't. Was there any real need to declare each and every pokémon someone held on their person? I voiced this question to Adryan, who shook his head in bemusement.

"Of course they've got to know," he said and tapped me lightly on the head. "If someone happens to come across your dead, mutilated body, they can begin to identify you by the pokémon on your person. Aside from that, it's a safety net for each and every town; they know the trainers that pass through are all eligible to use the pokémon they hold."

I blinked. "Eligible?"

"Oh, right," he said, running a hand through his hair. "You see, with each level threat of a pokémon, there's certain limits, tasks if you will, that you need to have passed to hold that pokémon. To have a level three risk pokémon with you in a town or populated area, you need to have at least four gym badges, two coordinator ribbons, or have had the pokémon for at least eighteen months. Otherwise, it's obvious you wouldn't have the talent to control the pokémon. Say if I let Irenui loose in this town and I couldn't control her? If she decided to whip up a sandstorm and kill everyone in the town, I'd be accountable for their deaths."

I nodded my understanding. Obviously, I would have to get enough badges to allow me to use any of those type of pokémon by my side in inhabited areas. There wasn't much chance of me becoming talented enough within the year to obtain coordinator ribbons, and I definitely did not have eighteen months to complete my goals. I could stick to lesser threat pokémon, but at the same time, I wasn't entirely certain I could manage to complete my task with the likes of current-time hoppip and rattata.

"What about the level four and fives then?" I asked. "Can any of those be allowed out and about in areas of life?"

He shook his head. "Not unless you've got even more qualifications. For level four, you need at least eight gym badges, five ribbons or to have spent three years training the pokémon. Even then, you need to get explicit permission from the town's mayor, person in charge or police force. Most will let you, though a lot more will charge you for the privilege." He folded his arms and blew hair from his face. "Level fives? You've got almost no chance. You need to either have won a region's league, hold twenty badges, have ten ribbons or have spent eight years training the pokémon. It's obvious why though; a gyarados can flatten a town if it so much as feels the _tiniest_ bit annoyed. The general rule of thumb to class a level five is if it's bigger than a house, or has many horror stories and myths around it, it's gonna be a five."

I stood still as I considered it all. I wasn't sure how well I could do against the gyms of a region; from what I had gathered listening to random travellers across my journey it took an average of a year to obtain eight badges. Whispers had told me that the current world champion had obtained the entire region's collective of twenty badges within eighteen months, though had spent a further five years training in every other region before she challenged the title. I didn't have that amount of time, but surely once my task was complete, I could train for the fun of it?

I smiled distantly at the thought. In my future, I had never given much thought to my own life; everyday held the chance I wouldn't live to see the next morning. Granted, it was the same regardless, no matter any person's location or time, but within my upbringing, the chances were incredibly more so. I found myself imagining a far-off future where I owned my own large house and land, where I was happily married, though no matter what, I could never see my wife's face. It was like my brain was telling me I had yet to meet her, though the figure was undeniably one which was instantly aesthetically appealing. Within the dream I had a few children running around, as well as Xander and Loki happily living the life of retirement.

I snapped out of the reverie abruptly. How had I changed so much that I was imagining my future including pokémon? Had I really bonded with them so quickly that I wanted them to be with me the remainder of my life? Pokémon lived on average, forty years. Even if my goals were complete, my strange vision of the future wasn't likely to include all of my team that helped me achieve everything.

Strangely, I felt extremely sad and numb at the thought. It was like I wanted to cry at the thought of something that was going to happen, regardless, to a bunch of creatures I would have been killing guiltlessly only a month ago.

The new world was changing me, fast, and I wasn't sure how much I truly liked it.

"Yo," Adyran said, waving a hand before my face. "Still there?" I blinked and shook my head, long enough for him to smirk at my inattention. "You kinda spaced out for a bit there. Go anywhere nice?"

I shrugged. "It was... unique." I stared down at the papers in my hand, finding that I had been grasping them like a holy scripture the whole time I thought of my future. It was like they were the key to my goal, the first step in creating what I found my heart strangely wanting. I shook my head, searching for something to distract myself from the strange longing that was now built within me. "So do you own many high risk-level pokémon?" I asked of Adryan.

He blinked and shook his head. "Just Irenui for now, though I've got another pokémon I'm training that'll evolve into a level four risk when he's ready to evolve."

"You must have a number of badges then," I said, jumping into logical conclusions from our conversation.

He grew a modest smirk and instantly turned a shade of pink, even as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I guess you could say that," he mumbled humbly. "I've been a trainer since I was ten, so going on ten years now. I started out here in Hoenn, though it took me almost two years to obtain the eight badges I needed to enter the league."

My eyebrows jumped up my face. Two years? I'd built a picture in my mind that Adryan was an extremely talented trainer; I'd never thought of him as a novice trainer struggling with battles, in my mind, he always seemed to have been as talented as I knew him.

"Yeah," he chuckled at my expression. "I was a newbie, and I wasn't all that good then. The mentor programme wasn't really up then, so I was just wandering around and learning everything for myself. I made a few friends and had a travelling group for a while, but..." he paled considerably and looked sick at something, "well, sometimes you realise travelling on your own can build you up and protect you more. I started off with Irenui, and it took me _forever_ to get her to listen to me completely; even when I entered the league with her, she was still a feisty, arrogant trapinch."

I did a double-take. "She was still a trapinch after two years?" I thought pokémon cycled through their forms extremely quickly; I had known the trainers of my time to take a base-level pokémon and evolve it into its final form within a few months.

Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if they were being pumped full of steroids at the same time.

"Uh-huh," he grunted with a nod. "Pokémon don't always evolve that quickly, you do realise? Some can evolve quickly, like most bug types, some at a moderate speed, like the starter pokémon the regions give out, and others can take a long time. Of the top of my head, the ones that take the longest are rhyhorn and snorunt; they can take just under four years."

My breath caught in my throat. There was yet another flaw with my so-carefully laid out plans. If some truly did evolve after such large amounts of time, what were my chances with saving my future?

"Well after that, I went to Kanto," Adryan continued to explain. At least he was unknowingly distracting me from my internal dilemma – though it did seem he was the cause for most of them. "Took just over a year training there, then I moved onto Johto for another year. Spent two years in Sinnoh after that, and when I finished there, I was sixteen. And I still had no idea what I wanted to do," he admitted with a small laugh. "Actually, I'm still not totally sure, to be honest. But I started going over the regions again, beginning to train my pokémon with coordinator stylings – I'd seen them used in Sinnoh at such a higher level than anywhere else, and it inspired me to do the same. At the same time, I collected all the badges from each region, though I worked backwards. Four years later, I'm back in Hoenn, with the full set of twenty badges from each region."

My eyebrows shot into my hairline and I'm sure my jaw dropped to the floor. "You have _eighty_ badges?"

He shrugged. "Most trainers about my age have about the same. In fact, after ten years, most trainers have well over a hundred, and have a few championships under their belts. I only went to the four biggest regions, and I've only actually ever managed to win one championship, and that was in Johto, which is supposedly the easiest one. Aside from that, I usually just finish in the top eight." He sighed and dropped his shoulders in defeat. "I got the winning funds from it, but I've saved them away. I want to win a championship in Hoenn and challenge the elite four and champion. Maybe after that, I'll go on to challenge the world champion." He shrugged. "I think that's the goal now, though it's subject to change at any given moment."

I was shocked into awed silence for a moment. "...wow," I managed to utter.

He laughed sheepishly. "Well, that's most of my history over and done with. Now, come on." He nodded towards the reception desk. "We've got to give your papers in, unless you just wish to stand here and chat for another ten minutes?"

I caught myself and gave a small, embarrassed grin. The receptionist looked up at me with a small smile when she saw me approach again and accepted the forms with professional courtesy. She flicked through them quickly, mouthing words as she read the answers before pressing another smile onto her lips. "That's brilliant, thank you," she said, placing them next to her computer keyboard. "I'll get your records typed up in just a moment. If you'd like to take a seat again and wait a moment, I'll let the professor know he needs to come down and meet you."

I nodded and murmured an intelligent, "Uh... yeah," as she twisted her chair round and went back to work. I made my way back to a chair and found Adryan already sat down, reclining like a slaking within a new, crisp sofa. I blinked, only then just aware that he wasn't actually at my side while I spoke to the woman. I pressed fingers to my eyes and squeezed long enough for green and gold spots to appear in my vision. I was getting sloppy and careless. Before I came here, I would have been completely aware of every movement. I need to start training again, not only my pokémon, but myself.

"It's the simple things you miss when you're travelling," Adryan said to me as I said beside him on the sofa. He grinned and sunk further into the sofa, ending up lying down and staring up at the ceiling. "Irenui's comfy and all, but there isn't much that can beat a nice, comfy sofa. Except maybe a nice, comfy bed."

I looked at him from the corner of my eye. "You're also spreading your travel-sweat stink over it, you realise?"

He shifted his eyes to look at me. "Well how else would you like me to mark my territory? I can't exactly lift a leg and piss over it, can I?"

I couldn't help but laugh at the mental image I produced. Only when I was just starting to get comfortable did I hear my name called, and I rose, grumbling to myself. Of course, the professor would _have_ to arrive just as I didn't want to get up again. Though when I set eyes upon him, I found myself startled with his experience.

In my mind, I had built up an image of the professor. Though upon seeing him, I had to say, he was _nothing_ like what I had pictured. If anything, he looked as if he were dressed for a picnic, given his dark green shirt and shorts, black flip-flops further increasing the illusion. He had a somewhat portly build, and his face too had a definite curve to it. His brown hair was a shaggy mess, and equally brown eyes stared at me with amusement.

The only thing that defined him as a scientist was the white lab coat he wore, though I was starting to believe he had simply wandered in here and stolen one.

He laughed and stuck his hand out. "Not what you were expecting, huh?" I smiled and shook my head, shaking his hand as he introduced himself. "I'm Professor Birch, head researcher at this facility. I specialise in pokémon habitats, so I'm usually out in the field, hence the lax clothes. I've never liked shirt and ties anyway."

I smiled at his joke, aware that Adryan had decided to remain on the sofa. At least I was becoming aware of my surroundings now, though I knew it was only because of conscious effort.

"This is all formality, really," he said as he pushed open two white swinging doors. "People supposedly feel better starting their journeys if someone is there to explain everything to them, rather than just being given a pamphlet and being let loose on the wild. Personally, I don't think there's really anything I could tell you that would be of any _true_ use on your travels, everything is always best learnt in the field, regardless.

"Anyway," he cleared his throat as we reached an office room overlade with clutter. Various styrofoam coffee cups were present everywhere within, and the wire mesh dustbin in the corner was near enough overflowing with scrunched up paper balls. Once again, I found myself wondering how this man became a professor, though I found myself somewhat pleased that even in such a profession, he was able to be himself. It gave me further hope that even as a trainer, I could still be myself, and not simply a mindless drone that went around screaming commands and making a fool of myself.

He pushed aside a stack of papers to reach his desk and pulled the computer screen closer. His hand clamped around a coffee cup and he shook it, testing the weight of its contents. He shrugged and drained the cup moments later, causing me to grimace instantly. Just how long had it been sat there? It obviously wasn't hot, and given the amount of similar cups within the room, I had to wonder just how old it was.

"As you can probably tell, this is my office. I would tell you to take a seat, but I'm afraid I lost the chair somewhere underneath all my paperwork."

He laughed sheepishly, though I smiled and shook my head. "It's alright, I'm fine standing."

"Good, good," he said, pressing a few commands onto his computer. "Well, I'll keep this simple," he said, spinning on his chair to face me. "According to the data you've given us, you're seventeen. Which means I don't need to treat you the same as the little kiddie-kids that come here for starter pokémon. Any extra pokémon over the carry-limit of six have to be sent here at the first possible occasion." He looked up at me and held his hands together on his lap. "No matter what, never use more than the six other pokémon in a trainer battle. You're free to have the seventh out, though if it's more than you can handle, be wise about it. Do, _please_ try to train it even a little first before you send it here though," he pleaded, exasperation in his voice. "I can't tell you the amount of times some little idiotic kid has sent through a pokémon they've just caught and never trained. They have no idea about humans, and suddenly they're let out in a facility full of them and other pokémon. More often than not, they panic and attack everyone and everything in sight. And the trainer who sends it is responsible for any and all damage in such a circumstance."

I frowned. "Why would kids be capturing more pokémon than they can train though? Are they all so simple-minded to think a new, untamed creature isn't going to attack them and everyone?"

Professor Birch sighed and shook his head. "I honestly don't know. So many kids go out with the mentality that the more pokémon they capture, the better the trainer they'll be. The ones that survive learn that being a trainer involves actually _training_ the pokémon you own, not simply hoping they can do your every whim and desire on command."

"They're feral creatures, at the end of the day," I said in agreement. "People don't seem to realise that, like a pet, they have to be trained to do everything." I didn't mention that just over a week ago, I was one of those people. "It's stupid and near-suicidal to think you can capture everything and anything and become the best with no effort at all."

"Exactly!" the Professor said, throwing his arms into the air. "Myself and the other professors of every region are continually appealing to the schools to teach more on this subject. But no matter what, there's always one or two kids that decide they know best. I do wish it didn't have to come to their friends' deaths at the hands of their pokémon to make them realise."

I shrugged. "It's natural selection at it's best." It sounded incredibly harsh, but it was true. Every species could only prosper with the advancement of their species. If it took such harsh events to teach everyone what they had always been ignorant to, at least they would have the knowledge to pass on. "It's better that they die and teach others, rather than survive and show many more that you can abuse and bully your pokémon into listening to you."

The professor snorted sadly a moment. "And here I thought you just dressed like that for show. You truly do have a soldier's mentality, don't you?"

I nodded, a small smile on my face. It was one of the few times I could feel truly in place, only when I talked about a soldier's way of life did I feel that I wasn't deceiving everyone I knew with every word I spoke. "It's why I've left it so late to become a trainer. I originally enrolled in every sort of army training I could, as early as I could. I managed to get recruited extremely early on – the local army trainer was near enough my guardian." I shrugged once more. "You see a great number of things, but at the end of the day, it teaches you exactly what you need to survive. Maybe trainers should have to go on some sort of forced army training before they set out?" I suggested, simply speaking what came to mind. "At least, if nothing else, the new trainers would know how to defend themselves and survive in the wild. And maybe they'd even develop enough respect to listen to what's being told to them, as well as respect pokémon enough to not abuse them. You're a special kind of idiot if you think abusing a creature that can breathe fire isn't going to have consequences."

Professor Birch laughed and rubbed his chin. "I agree with you there. Though you do bring a valid point; if everyone trained a year or two with the military, at least new trainers would have knowledge of the outside world. It could also push up the trainer age, so that less ten year olds rush out and get themselves killed." He placed a hand under his chin, propping his head up as he thought about it. "I may just have to approach the government with such an idea. I don't suppose if it happened, you'd want any credit for it?"

I shrugged. "I'm not totally bothered, to be honest. If it happens, it happens. If not, it doesn't. Either way, right now, I don't really want to be much more than a trainer, not a political agent attempting to change the world."

"Well, I'll make sure you're named as the main idea behind it, regardless," he promised me. "If there is a political shit-storm, there probably won't be enough interest in you for them to go after you for a story. If it succeeds, you'll most likely receive a few government checks for the idea, as well as a few more for you to claim it was never your idea in the first place."

I smirked wryly. "Ah, the old government act of self-promotion, huh?"

He chuckled. "Afraid so. If you come up with a brilliant idea, they'll pay you as much as you like to let them take credit. If it falls through, they'll make sure you take as much of the fall as you can. Either way, they make sure they come up smelling of roses." He sighed and shook his head, spinning round to look at his computer screen. "Once you trust a pokémon enough, you can leave it out with you at night to look over you and fend off any approaching wild creatures. Your best bet for this would be a nocturnal creature, something like a hoothoot or a zubat. Darks and ghosts would be brilliant, though they do take a while to become trustworthy. And even then, they're not completely so."

I smiled and fingered a poké ball on my holster. "I already have one of those; a sableye." The professor turned his chair to meet me with a surprised look, and I found my smile broaden. "He's harmless really – to me at least. He's never actually attempted to harm me, in fact, he's only done so when he thought I was stopping him from eating or having fun."

Professor Birch laughed once more. "You sound like you've become attached to him. Sableye are strange creatures," he said with confidence. "They're both ghost and dark in nature, yet can often be neither. Most dark and ghost types are malevolent and always out to cause pain and suffering – sableye always just seem to want to cause mischief and mayhem. In fact, the only other pokémon of darkness that is anything similar is absol; they have the ability to sense natural disasters, and will try to warn as many as they can. The only true aspect of darkness they hold is that they become more powerful in the dark, and females are prone to mood swings when there's a full moon."

I nodded with his words. Even in my time, absol always sought to help everyone and everything they could. In fact, they were one of the few creatures we didn't actively hunt. Every time one appeared, it was always with a warning that something would happen. Once we realised this, absol were always revered – even when the odd one or two actually caused damage, they somehow always managed to escape total blame and fear. If nothing else, the creatures had become something similar to our guardian angels – even if they did have a tendency to eat the pokémon we bred for food.

He caught himself and gasped, looking at his wristwatch. "Well, it seems I'm becoming distracted as I'm talking to you. I've got about six other trainers waiting to get their licences, as well as a meeting later to discuss the lab's financial state for the next year."

I smiled in both amusement and pity. "That sounds truly fascinating."

He chuckled and pressed a few commands onto his computer. "The only interesting thing is Davis – our newest accountant. He's forever giving us new budgets and ways to save and spend money, though has to tell us all by giving a big speech in front of us all. It's bad, but he has a stutter, as well as a lisp. We shouldn't laugh, but-"

"You can't not laugh at the same time," I finished with a smirk.

"Exactly," he nodded, chuckling to himself. "Right," he said, punching a command onto the computer. "Just stay still for a moment, and we're going to get your photo done for your trainer identification."

I didn't even manage to form a response before a camera appeared from the wall opposite me. It whirred into life with mechanical noise and flashed brightly enough to cause spots to dance in my vision. I knew I didn't want to see what I looked like in the picture.

"Okay, that's done," professor Birch said, distractedly. "That will be placed into your pokédex; it's got pretty much everything you could need to tell you about pokémon. You can use it as a form of identification, as well as proof that you're a trainer. Alongside that, you'll get a small trainer identification card that you should keep in your wallet or at least easily accessible on your person or in your bag. Lose one, and you can use the other to order a replacement. Lose them both and you'll have to travel back here and obtain two new ones, as well as file a missing report on them – I can't tell you the amount of times someone's used a stolen trainer i.d. to cause all sorts of mayhem." He spread his arms and gestured around the room. "Believe it or not, almost all this paperwork is simply from stolen and abused trainer identifications being used in some way or another. It's that bad, I've even had to sort them into piles according to how severe the crime is."

I blinked in surprise. It was mad to think about, yet when I glanced at the sheet atop one pile, it made perfect sense. Apparently the pile I read was for stolen identifications being used to buy both pokémon and items on the black market. That was confusing enough for me; I never would have thought you would need i.d. to buy from the black market. I could only assume that even criminals had a code of ethics.

"Here you are," he said as he pressed a small red machine no bigger than four inches by six inches. It was, in fact, pocket sized – at least for the large pockets of my combat pants. Atop it was a small green card that could fit into a wallet, decorated with a picture of me, as well as detailing everything about me, from my name, age, even to my current pokémon risk level restrictions.

"Once you prove yourself enough as a trainer, you trainer card and details can be updated," Birch explained as he stood and rummaged through a pile of papers on his desk. "They'll allow you to buy more off-limit items, such as steroids to boost your pokémon's abilities, as well as have higher risk-level pokémon by your side in towns. Until then, don't have any pokémon risk level three or higher outside of their poké balls in towns – the list of the risk levels is on your pokédex. That's simple enough to use, it explains everything you need when you first start up, and I've got a guide for it... here!" he exclaimed, holding a small booklet above his head like a trophy. "Read this when you get the chance," he said, placing it into my hands. "Use the pokédex as much as you can while you journey; it can record mass amounts of data not only for you to use, but also to be transmitted back to me, which I can then use to update everything we know about the pokémon."

I nodded, placing everything away in my bag for the time being. "Is that everything?"

"Yup!" Birch nodded enthusiastically. "Now you're able to go off and explore the wilds as a registered trainer."

"Can I get your number as well?" I asked. Despite my initial impression of the man; Birch certainly knew what he was doing in every regard to pokémon. He was a likeable guy too, and even if I used him every now and then for information, he was actually enjoyable to talk to. "I can let you know more directly about things that way, rather than through the pokédex."

"Ah, yes, yes, of course!" he said, patting his pockets for a pen. "After all, how else can I let you know about how your idea towards training is progressing? Here," he said, handing me a slip of paper with his number scrawled across it, "if you want to know anything the pokédex isn't showing, if you want to tell me something you think I don't know, or even if you just want a friendly chat, feel free to ring me on that number. I'll also be able to let you know about how well your pokémon are doing under my care and even point out a few things you can do to help your training along the way."

I pocketed the number. "Thanks professor," I said, noting our arrival back into the reception room. I scanned it quickly, finding Adryan still near enough oozing over the same sofa I left him on. I stuck my hand out and smiled at professor Birch. "You've helped a lot."

He laughed. "Only doing my job. It was good meeting you," he said as he shook my hand. "Take care of yourself."

I nodded. "You too." He walked off to collect another new trainer, and I found my fingers searching out the trainer i.d. that displayed my details. The small piece of laminated card said so much, but nothing like what I felt. It was my attachment to this world, my proof that I belonged.

If nothing else, it was making this new world feel like home.


	10. The Evolved

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**The Evolved**

**

* * *

**

_Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. ~ _Dwight D. Eisenhower.

* * *

_"You're never the first to realise how monumental your task is, and never the last. But no matter what it is and who you are, you always think your's is the hardest."_

- Jeffery Archer, Ancient Pokemon Mannerisms, PHD; Archaeology and Ancient Pokemon, Msc. _(Comment from an interview into excavations at the Ruins of Alph, Johto. November 28th, 3009)_

* * *

The weather when we left the lab was truly a blessing. A torrential storm had opened up from the heavens, and rain continued to beat down from above. It was still warm, though now I felt comfortable in knowing the majority of water running across my body was rain and not sweat.

My journey just _had_ to be in the hottest region, didn't it? I swore then and there that after I had completed it, I would run away and hide within Sinnoh somewhere, perhaps in Snowpoint City. I'd live quite happily in an igloo somewhere over there and sleep on a bed of nice, cold snow, day in, day out.

It was a pleasing thought.

Beside me, Adryan groaned at the turn of weather. He grumbled and pulled his coat above his head, mumbling continually about the horrors of rainy weather.

Lightning struck a nearby town and I couldn't help but laugh like a giddy kid. "How can you _not_ like rain?" I asked him, just about refraining myself from spinning in tandem with the rainfall. Maybe I would when alone, but I _did_ have my dignity to think about when in front of anther person.

He grumbled once again. "I grew up around fire types, remember? I like heat, and lots of it. Rain lowers a fire type's body core temperature and can prove fatal to them if they're out in it too long. Because I spent so much time around them, I adjusted to the heat and stayed away from the rain. I don't feel the heat, but I feel the cold like no one's business." He shivered and hugged his arms tightly around himself. "And being wet makes me feel the cold all the more."

I smiled. "Can't say I feel sorry for you. I'm the complete opposite; this rain's a blessing for me."

He snorted and pulled his coat further over his head. "We'll be back to normal weather soon enough anyway, and I'll happily go back to laughing at your inaptitude for heat."

I frowned, though looked away. We were in the beginning of the only pedestrian-friendly route out of Littleroot, which was a considerable distance away from the only other road, which had the occasional car speeding along. The vehicles weren't all that common in this time either, I noted, with a small hint of interest. In a place where wild animals could be tamed to fly you anywhere or carry you across vast distances, vehicles weren't used all that often. In fact, the majority of vehicles were either boats or planes, as even though people always needed to cross the oceans of continents, not everyone had a flier or a pokémon capable of swimming them across seas safely.

The route had a small pond which was beginning to overflow slightly that I let Xander out to have a swim in. I began to think about myself having to cross the vast seas; I knew that part of Hoenn led to Dewford Town, which I knew I had to cross at some point. The only problem was that it was located at least fifty miles out to sea, and the only way to get to it was by boat or pokémon. Doubtless I would have to take a boat there, as Xander wouldn't be able to ferry me across well at all. How much would that cost? I asked Adryan this and he began making calculations on his fingers.

"I can't put an exact figure on it," he told me, frozen in counting on his fingers. "Last time I took the ferry across was when I'd just arrived back in Hoenn a year ago, and that was only because Irenui and Siren were both tired." He frowned, obviously trying to remember the exact figure. "I _think_ it was about a hundred poké. It's not too bad considering it's a ticket that allows you to travel between Petalburg and Slateport, though you've got to use it within a week. If you're in Dewford any longer than that, you'll have to pay for a one-way ticket anew."

I blinked. A hundred poké was still quite a lot of money, and I wasn't completely sure I had anywhere near that on my person at the time. "Can I not just buy two one-way tickets? Surely that'd be cheaper?"

He shook his head. "That's how they make their money out of you. Singles are more expensive than a two-way ticket... though it _does_ depend on how far in advance you book it. I'd say once we reach Rustboro, you should order them there when you want to leave, and book the tickets for about a week ahead. That way, you might be able to get them at half the price."

I nodded. In the pond, Xander croaked and dove under, reappearing a moment later with a baby finneon flopping wildly in his mouth. He croaked around it and bit into it, severing its head completely from its body in one move. He happily began to chew on his food and let the bottom half of his meal float before him, where it left a small trail of blood.

It was the first time I'd seen him eat something other than the tiny little gnats that constantly bothered me on my travels. Truthfully, it shocked me a little, though I quickly found myself adjusting to the idea. I quickly scanned the pond itself and made note of the small clusters of bushes and small depth of the water. It wasn't going to have anything predatory hiding within, and it seemed a perfect place for most pokémon to leave their young to hatch. I squinted and crouched down, focusing on a dark circle shape at the bottom of the pond. It seemed to be an underwater tunnel that no doubt led to a large source of water, which at least answered my unvoiced question of how finneon young were in the pond in the first place.

"You know you can explore underwater, right?" Adryan said as he crouched down beside me. "If you train a water pokémon well enough, they'll be able to help you navigate against the harsh currents of the seas. It's one of the few ways to reach Sootopolis, save for flying in and taking a boat. Most people take the boat, though a few people attempt to take the underwater route in."

I looked at him a moment. "Why would people do that?" Save for showing off, I couldn't think of a logical reason why.

He smiled. "The gym leader there specialises in water pokémon. If you manage to pass through the underwater route, then he'll grant you a battle sooner than the people who come in by boat. Of course-" he shrugged, "-that's providing you survive the journey in. Most people that swim through don't realise how deep they are, and either end up drowning because they didn't realise how long they'd be underwater for, crushed by the pressure of the depths, or they even come up too quickly for air and end up with the bends."

"It sounds like a massive gamble to skip ahead a few days for a battle," I said.

"It's not always for a battle though," he said as he shook his head. "Gym leaders often take on new trainers to train under their command. They have to prove they can handle water to the leader, and the most obvious way is to travel into the town by the underwater routes. If they survive, the leader will take them on and train them."

I nodded along with his words. These leaders sounded like masters of their element; pushed to their limits by the powers of the pokémon they trained. I found myself thinking of my time, remembering the records of powerful mono-type trainers. They would evolve with their pokémon, a symbiosis of sorts, where they would grow with each other, a beneficial relationship where both parties prospered. I wondered, was that still in effect in the current time I was in?

"Is there..." I fumbled over my words. "Are the gym leaders... urm, I don't know... any _different_ to normal trainers?" I blundered, aware of how awkward I sounded. "Have the gym leaders adapted in some way from the relationship with their pokémon?"

Adryan whistled. "I'm surprised you know that," he said as he pressed hands onto his knees. "Most people only figure that out after they've fought a few gym leaders." He lifted an eyebrow at me. "Are you sure you've only just started out as a trainer?"

I nodded. "Positive."

He snorted. "Either you've got a magical ability for making extremely accurate guesses, you're extremely smart, or you've got some sort of freaky cheat sheet to everything."

I bit my lip. Perhaps being from a future eighty years away _did_ count as a cheat sheet... not that I was going to mention that to Adryan though. I was sure he would turn me into the authorities and let the professors dissect my brain if I told him the truth. Instead I just smiled modestly.

He shook his head. "Every gym leader's somewhat _evolved_ from the relationship with their pokémon. It's not exactly an unknown topic, but pokémon and humans are extremely similar. But the full extent of which was only found out a few years ago. Apparently, if a person spends long enough with a type of pokémon, they become more adjusted to them, and can pass on those traits to their children, much like how pokémon develop, breed and evolve. It's also why mostly all gyms run in a family.

"You see-" he stood up and rubbed his legs, "-because they've spent so long with the pokémon, they've developed qualities like them. Not anything like being able to blast water or fire from their mouths, but more subtle, unseen abilities. For example, water specialists are able to see underwater, hold their breath for hours and take in oxygen through their skin, as well as survive the pressure of the depths without harm once they've adjusted well enough to their pokémon. In addition, water types will also respond better to them, and the trainer will be able to assert dominance over them faster than any other 'normal' trainer."

My mind buzzed with inquisition. I glanced at Xander, who continued to eat his meal with happiness and began to wonder. If I spent long enough with just him, did that mean I'd be able to near enough breathe underwater too? I began to daydream of the possibilities of exploring ocean depths, only to be snapped from my reverie by Adryan.

"They also inherit some of the weaknesses too," he said and squatted beside me again. "I mean, the water trainers will become more susceptible to electric shocks. Where they might have only received a static shock before, they'll likely to lose all feeling in that area for a while. By the same token, they'll find that being in sunlight dries them out more than ever, and they're in constant need of a drink."

I considered what he told me, knowing that it made sense. On the one hand, it was remarkable that humans could develop such attributes within their own life spans, on the other; it was a shame the knowledge wasn't more public. Though I supposed that if it were, people would be abusing it constantly, forever training as many pokémon as they could to abuse their power. It also made it a plus point that they also inherited the weaknesses too; it prevented our species from becoming too powerful.

Regardless, my mind raced with hunger for information. "So what about other trainer specialists?" I asked. "Like rock types?"

He held a hand out and laughed. "Please don't make this into twenty questions." He smiled and raked his hand through his hair. "You're best off learning all of this on your own; it will make you appreciate it more."

I looked at him, bemused. "How did _you_ figure it out then?"

He shuffled his feet sheepishly. "I, uh... had some help," he mumbled. "Someone I travelled with was a high-up trainer in one of the gyms, and was showing the starting signs of adapting." He blushed a bright pink and looked away, eager to find distraction in the lake.

However I found a piece of information I could use to annoy him for once. "So you were dating?" I asked, a grin plastering my face as he turned beet red. "Come on, spill! What was she like? Was she fun? Was she hot?" I nudged his side. "Was she good in bed?"

He spluttered and pushed me away, even as I laughed. "Not talking about it," he mumbled, and somehow managed to blush even further.

Instead I laughed more, victoriously. "Hey, you can't go around annoying others and not expect retribution." I grinned again, though noticed his small shudders in a new light. He hugged himself closer as the rain continued to beat down on us, and it was like someone had switched on a light in my mind. "You're adapted to fire types, aren't you?" I asked, my voice coming out a low whisper.

He looked at me in alarm and turned back to the lake, where he began to poke at the soft soil sheepishly. "Smart guy," he said, gaze focused in a distant land. "Yeah, because of my mother, I've adapted more to the fiery nature of pokémon. It's why I can withstand such high temperatures without batting so much as an eyelid. It's also why I feel the cold more than most; fire types have an internal heat source, humans don't. Though-" he looked at me with a sly grin, "-I've noticed you're the opposite."

I blinked in surprise. "Me?" I questioned and pointed to myself.

"Damn straight," he answered with a laugh. "Hey, you've admitted you feel the heat worse than most, and yet you don't feel the cold. I'd say given that, someone in your ancestry was an ice specialist."

I considered the possibility, though came up with no new knowledge. "It's possible," I admitted, "though I'm never going to know. Both my parents are dead, and they died too young for me to ever find out if I had any other family."

"What about family friends?" he asked.

_They're not born yet._ "They're dead too."

"Oh," he whispered. "Well, I'm sure I'm right anyway," he said with a grin. "You'll find out more later on, maybe from other gym leaders or specialist trainers, but know that the gym leader is always the most adapted in the region. The elite four are too, but they're on another level."

"How so?" I asked.

He grinned and shook his finger side-to-side. "You'll just have to find out for yourself, soldier boy. Just remember though, it doesn't happen instantly, and the barest of changes will happen in your lifetime. It's always the children that inherit better abilities."

I frowned. There went my theories of being able to watch people adapt within a lifetime.

"There may be some small changes within you, though the kids always have better abilities than their parents." He stood and began to swing his arms. "I mean, my mother's pretty adapted to fire types, though she still feels the heat from them, and can't handle it as well as me. By the same token, she doesn't feel the cold as much as me either." He stopped and considered me a moment. "I'd say it was most likely either of your parents that specialised with ice creatures, or maybe even your grandparents."

I stood and crossed my arms, though found myself wary of the amount of information he possessed on the subject. "How do you know so much about it all? It sounds like more you'd piece together just from a small bit of information off of a partner."

He winced and rubbed the back of his head. "Good call. My father's a scientist at Devon Corporation," he said, though the words meant nothing to me. "They're attempting to rival Kanto's Silph Corporation at the moment, and they're trying to advance the best they can in human and pokémon biology. The aim is to provide the best knowledge and understanding of our shared background in order to fully understand what fully divides us, as well as what made them develop their powers, as well as what made us develop independent thought and the ability to build and construct towns and the like."

I chewed my bottom lip. "That sounds like recycled political spiel. How sure are you that aren't just attempting to give humans the power to create fire or electricity?" It could have been what caused the war that led to my time, after all, I began to think. If Hoenn had developed a formula to give humans pokémon abilities, every other nation may have seen it as a threat, and thus attacked them. I focused on him and pushed rain-soaked hair from my face. "Humans always abuse power. What's to say they won't do it here?"

He shrugged. "Not sure to both questions." He let his coat drop down to his shoulders, and instantly the rainwater soaked his dry hair. "I don't bother myself with my dad's work – I try not to think about it. I'm more than happy to simply be a trainer and just embrace that lifestyle. I wouldn't trade any of the pokémon I own for the world – regardless of how mad they are." He clicked his tongue and looked at me in amusement. "You're really world-weary for a teenager, you know that?"

_That's because I've seen the world such power abuse leads to._

I couldn't help but shake the visions of my home; where pokémon and human alike suffered from multiple wounds and sores along their bodies, from weaponry, animal savagery and artificial viruses. A land where the survivors fed off the fallen and where humanity was nothing but a faded dream.

Of course, I couldn't say any of that to him. Instead I scowled and recalled Xander into his ball. "I've got plenty enough reason to be," I said and walked away into the rain.

* * *

My mind was abuzz with delight and inquisition as I thought about Adryan's words. I found myself no longer caring about his slip; I realised quickly after I stormed off that the common viewpoint concerning scientific advances were very similar to his, if not more so. Instead what bothered me was the conversation about the evolved humans.

For one thing, what were they called?

More than that, I began to question my lineage. I had never known my family, and it had never bothered me. I didn't even know their _names_! The closest person to a father I had was Commander Flite, and I knew he was anything but a normal father figure. I knew the normal standard was that they brought up their kids with love and would always seek to entertain them. Instead Flite would near enough break our backs forcing us into shape and then push us even further in shooting in quick-fire, precise bursts.

I had a brotherly relationship with the rest of my guard troop, but only to a degree. When it came down to it, we knew that we were all disposable, and that we would have to eventually leave each other behind in a worst-case scenario. Needless to say, it stopped us bonding us much as we could.

It was honestly the first time I could remember myself actually being upset about my lack of a family. It was an alien feeling that burnt within me, threatening to engulf me entirely with it's cold-burning fire.

Why was it me that had to be born in such a situation? Why did I never have to know the comfort of a mother's hug? Why did my father have to die before I could even begin to form memories with him? Why was I alone?

It all boiled down to one final question; _why me?_

My vision became blurred by large watery spots not a moment later. I blinked and rubbed my eyes heavily, able to feel the water trickle free from my eyes. It raced along my cheeks with itchy heat, making me scratch at it in annoyance. I stopped and faced the sky, allowing the rain water to mask the tears leaking from my eyes. I couldn't understand then why they so suddenly began, or why it filled me with such grief. You weren't supposed to miss what you never had... so why did I suddenly start?

I gripped the two balls containing the strange creatures native to our land in my hands. They were my only allies in my quest; my only legal weapons in this time. They were the ones that would help me stop my future ever from happening, and they were the weapons I needed to progress further in this world.

The hollow void that I felt filled with anger all of a sudden. Just what exactly was I meant to do to stop my future from occurring? I knew nothing of this time! Every fairytale I'd ever heard growing up involved everything being so clear to the hero. Where the hell was my guide to save the world? Celebi had let Jennifer know all she needed, and in turn completely left me in the dark! The damned green pixie had just uprooted me from my home and dumped me somewhere alien, left only to reflect on everything I knew of my past to save the future! When the hell was it going to show up and show me what to do? Every part of my being became fuelled with anger towards the stupid little time-travelling beast. Throughout it all though, one question burned at my mind:

_Why me?_

Everything just boiled up and exploded out of me in that one moment in time. Honestly, I don't know how I managed to stay so sane and normal before everything became too much. It was like everything had only just started to make sense, and the gravity of my situation had suddenly dropped on me.

I clutched one poké ball tighter than the other. I needed cheering up; I knew that. I snatched it off my bandolier and called Loki out of his ball.

The sableye hissed at the small amounts of sunlight in the air. He skulked a step forwards, sniffed at the air before he threw his head back and cackled insanely. Instantly I couldn't help but smile at his antics.

"Hey Loki," I said softly, crouched down level with the creature. "How's things with you?"

He looked up at me and cocked his head curiously. I could understand why; before then, I'd never really engaged the creature in conversation. I'd only managed to fall about laughing when he made his first impression and then stopped him from moving anywhere when he was tormenting the fish from Siren's head.

"I need cheering up," I admitted to the creature. He stared at me even more, crystal eyes remaining impossibly focused on me. I wasn't sure if he was truly listening to me, trying to understand my words or just playing dumb, but his presence was reassuring.

A light seemed to appear in his eyes. He cackled once and dove into the undergrowth, and not moments later I heard various squeaks and shrieks of alarm and pain. There were two high-pitched death shrieks not moments later and I could only wonder what manner of creature Loki had killed.

He appeared mere moments later, two dead rattata floating along impossibly behind him. His eyes had a twinge of a deep blue, the same colour which surrounded the dead rodents. He flicked his wrists like he was wearing long sleeves, and the rattata floated beneath his invisible grip.

And suddenly, they began to move. It was an eerie dead rat puppet show, and the 'stars' moved flawlessly, acting out small scenes in perfect unison with Loki's grunts and grumbles.

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

Loki grinned, revealing a set of razor sharp teeth before the dead rattata began to _dance_. A stitch formed in my side as I continued to laugh, which only served to provoke him into carrying on his dead rat theatre.

Behind me I heard the familiar tones of Adryan's laugh. He crouched down behind me –wary of Loki – and watched the ghost's performance. Our laughs were the only sounds that broke the awkward silence.

Finally he asked, "Feeling better?"

I nodded distantly, my eyes completely focused on my pokémon. "Yeah," I breathed and sat on the muddy floor. It was nothing new to me; most of my life was spent living in trenches or muddy conditions, simply sitting in it wasn't a bother to me – regardless of the curious look I know Adryan gave me. "Everything just sorta got on top of me," I admitted.

"I gathered," he said. In the silence, I could near enough hear him thinking on what next to say. "It must be something big to make you get that pissed over a throwaway comment."

I shrugged. "It just made me realise a few things I've been blissfully ignorant to." It _was_ true after all. "Don't worry about it," I reassured him. "It wasn't anything you said. Well, it _was_, but it wasn't that exactly... uh, you understand what I mean right?"

He laughed. "I think I can gather." He watched Loki a moment longer, the sableye now making the rattata perform ballet. It was funny, creepy and brilliant all at once. "How bad is it?" he pried.

I smiled wryly. "Maybe someday."

Loki finished his performance as one rattata threw the other into the air. It fell back down and landed in his waiting mouth, which snapped shut down on it instantly. Blood and gore exploded everywhere, and the sounds of crunching bone deafened our applause.

I began to wonder how much control I had over the strange creature. "Hey Loki, stop that for a moment, will you?" He look up, mouth open with blood slowly dripping from his teeth. I smiled and waved my hand. "It's alright, you enjoy your food." He cackled and bit the rat's body clean off; only it's legs remained within the ghost's grip.

I blinked. How far would he listen? More than that, how was he listening to me so much already?

"Adryan," I said, eyes fixed on my pokémon. "Do you think my ancestors were ghost or dark specialists?"

He grunted an indecisive noise. "Possible. He's listening to you well. He could have been a trainer pokémon before, given his psychic abilities. There's a number of reasons for it; he could just be giving you a false sense of security, or even just strangely obedient. Though-" I heard him stand behind me and stretch his legs, "-you haven't battled with him yet have you?"

I shook my head. "No, not yet."

"That could be it then," he said. "Most pokémon change after they've tasted blood in battle. A few types especially."

I snorted. "And let me guess; two of them just happen to be those that are dark or ghostly in nature."

He snapped his fingers. "Bingo."

I rolled my eyes. "Just my luck." I stood and walked towards Loki, close enough to pick up his forgotten rattata. I held it up by its tail, the last few drops of blood still falling from its severed throat. "You gonna eat this?" I asked him, holding it before him.

He looked up and made a throaty growl. A moment later he burped and flopped on the ground, happily rubbing at his stomach.

I deadpanned. "I take it that's a no." I looked around and threw the dead rat a far enough distance away, sure that it would land in the middle of a local predator's territory.

Adryan regarded me with interest. "Why'd you do that?" He folded his arms just as I turned to face him. "You could have just left it."

"If I left it, something would come and find it," I replied, mirroring his stance. "If it did that, it would be able to track our scent. Do you really want a pack of-" my mind blanked at the pokémon native to the area we were in. "Well, _anything_ hunting us down?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess not. But what are the chances of that happening?"

I could only shake my head at his naivety. "Just how have you managed to survive ten years travelling?"

He smirked. "Luck." He stretched his arms behind his head, managing to pop them both. "I managed to get a travel group pretty early on. I caught a flier within the first month, and by the time I had trained her fully... well... I was travelling on my own again. Between her and Irenui I had a lookout in the air as well as a pokémon that could sense vibrations in the ground."

I pinched the bridge of my nose briefly. "You really need to learn some survival instincts..."

He shrugged and turned his gaze skywards. "No need. I've survived this long. Besides, I've got a dragoness that's always with me, and I've also got a psychic, ghost and dark pokémon all able to be transferred to me at anytime."

I could only sigh. "You shouldn't put all your trust into pokémon you know."

He smiled. "Why not? At the end of the day, they know that I'm the one feeding them and providing them with care. You're still letting your pokémon eat from the wild – which is good, but also kinda hampering on your training."

"Make sure they rely on me for food, and only let them hunt when there's no other option?" I guessed.

He nodded. "Pretty much. You can let them hunt for a treat as well, but as long as they know you're in charge, you've got no problem."

I frowned. "But some pokémon are natural hunters. Surely it's better for them to practice their instincts?"

"I suppose," he conceded. "Or of course, it could help them be able to hunt _you_ down instead." He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. "Survival instincts buddy."

I bit my lip unable to say much as he threw my words back into my face. Instead I smiled at Loki ad recalled him back into his poké ball, taking Adryan's advice to heart. There was so much I needed to know, and so little time to truly put it into practice. I needed to make these feral beasts obey my every whim and command without question, in addition to making sure they were powerful enough to defeat everything they needed to.

Again I felt the weight descend on my shoulders. I needed to do everything it seemed, all with no time to achieve it.

My face must have betrayed what I was truly feeling, for instantly Adryan said, "Dude, you look _serious_. All your shit come back for another round?"

I smiled despite feeling anything but happy. "You could say that."

He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked, sounding truly concerned. "Anything you need?"

I groaned and rubbed my eyes. I needed something to take my mind away from it all. I needed something that could help me forget the whole mess I'd gotten myself into. I needed... I needed an escape.

Thankfully, there was always a form of that handy providing you had the money.

"I need a drink. A _strong_ drink."


	11. Victory's Cost

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Victory's Cost  
**

**

* * *

**_If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires. _~ Abigail Van Buren

* * *

_"Losing has a cost, and not doing anything has a cost. But the heaviest price to pay is often the cost you didn't know that came from winning."_

_- _Agatha Harker, 33rd Kanto League Champion, Kanto Elite Four member 2967-3005._ (August 18th, 3007)_

_

* * *

_

My first memories of Oldale Town were nothing more than a drunken blur accompanied by strange sounds and occasional black spots.

Needless to say, when I awoke the next morning, I was regretting the night before. My head was pounding within my skull at the slightest of noises and the entire room spun when I lay down. My bed felt like it was balancing on top of water, and I was sure it was rocking me everywhere and anywhere. I forced myself to sit up on my bed and stared in a pained haze at myself. I'd gone to bed fully clothed - including my boots! It was without a doubt one hell of a night if I'd been so drunk I'd forgotten to get changed for bed.

I glanced over at Adryan, wincing at his snores which bore into my tender skull. He was in a similar state of dress, which told me that I wasn't going to be the only one suffering from the night before. I stood up and lurched, grasping my stomach instinctively. Hoenn beer in this time was a _lot_ stronger than the beer of my time... unfortunately, by the time I'd drunk three, I was far past caring.

It took effort to get myself to my feet, and even more will to stop myself swaying on my feet. It had been a while since I'd had such a god-awful hangover, but it wasn't the first time I'd had to spend a day suffering for the liver damage. At least this time I wasn't on a sudden sixteen hour guard stint.

I made way into the adjoining bathroom, plucking my bag and scouring it for some sort of painkiller on my way. Once I'd filled a glass enough with water I took as big a swig as I could in addition to the pain relief, and if anything, made it worse. For some reason, after alcohol, water always seemed to taste like cheap vodka to me. Regardless, I pushed past it and drank as much as I cold stomach. A hangover was simply dehydration. All I needed was pain killers, water and a shower, and I'd slowly get better throughout the day.

My stomach rumbled as I shed my clothes for a shower. Obviously I needed food too. A nice, greasy fry-up was in order. As a soldier, I knew to follow my body's needs and whims when required. I could push far past the limits of exhaustion and hunger the normal person could, but even then, I had my own limitations. I didn't much fancy facing a day with a monster hangover and empty stomach whilst training my pokémon.

The world spun around me again and I gripped onto the shower screen to keep myself steady on my feet. Obviously I wasn't going to be doing much physical training, which meant I would spend the day going over little routines with my pokémon and learning more from the guidebook and pokédex I held.

I returned from the shower and dressed in a spare set of clothes, taking a moment to glance at the time. It was only oh-nine hundred hours... it made my head spin once more. I was sure I'd not gotten in the night before until sometime around oh-three hundred... it meant I'd only had roughly five hours of sleep on a massive drunken binge.

Yet it was also the longest I'd slept in a very long time.

I left Adryan a quick note and adjusted him in his sleep slightly. Dead weight made him weigh more than he seemed, though I knew it had to be done. I'd lost count of the amount we'd drunk the night before, but judging by the pressure in my skull, it was a lot. I'd seen countless allies drink too much and end up vomiting in their sleep, it was nothing more than instinctive common sense that made me move him into the recovery position. If nothing else, it would make sure if he did vomit during his sleep, he wouldn't choke on it.

I swayed on my feet and considered my vast wealth of practical knowledge. Just how different was I from the 'normal' people my age of this world? I considered Adryan for a moment, and snorted to myself. He was anything but normal... in fact, I was sure he was as weird as I was to this world – though at least I had an excuse.

I deliberated that as I made my way out of our room. Apparently we'd checked into the pokémon centre sometime during the night for somewhere to stay. I winced, considering how much it may have cost, in addition to our late night binge. I opened my wallet and winced again at the sparse amount of notes left within the leather bounds. Obviously I was to be eating sparingly for a few days after ordering breakfast.

What surprised me the most was that the centre itself didn't have a cafeteria within. Adryan had explained to me that most centres had a food section that sold edible food at prices affordable to a trainer's budget. I'd told him he sounded like he was advertising the centre, though he'd only laughed it off with a grin and another swig of his drink. I blinked and let the room straighten itself out for a moment. At least I remembered something from the night before.

I found a young girl who couldn't have been older than fourteen sat in the centre's lobby, waiting for her pokémon to be healed. She nearly leapt out of her seat when I spoke to her, and I wondered how much my breath stank of stale alcohol despite brushing my teeth multiple times. Although when she calmed down and I saw the small scars and nicks on her body, I gathered it must have been because of she was fairly new to being a pokémon trainer.

"Do you know what's up with the food here?" I asked her. She looked up at me with bright brown eyes that held a familiar look of haunting. Obviously she'd seen a person or pokémon she'd cared about die sometime recently.

She squinted up at me, dirty ginger hair falling into her face and making her look even younger than I first thought. "You don't know?" she asked me.

I shook my head and instantly regretted it. The room span for a good moment even after I stopped movement. "I only just got into town last night."

She shrugged and obviously thought nothing of it. "There was a leak in the lab on ruin road two streets down. They found out it was nothing, but apparently it managed to infect the pokémon centre's food stock. They've shut it down for contamination issues, and every food shop within a five-street radius of the lab, but everywhere else is fine."

I nodded and smiled at her. "Thanks for the help." She smiled and gestured that it was no problem as I turned to leave. If there was a contamination issue with the food, I'd rather head a bit further out than five streets. Unfortunately, Oldale Town was only large enough to accommodate a twenty street radius around the centre. It meant I was going to the farther regions of the town. At least on the way I could find some supplies I would no doubt need.

* * *

After a good while of wandering without any specific destination in mind, I happened upon a small cafe that overlooked the distant river found in route hundred-and-three. It was run by an old couple that were completely welcoming to any customer, though the man did make a few sly jokes to my hung-over state.

Better than that, they said I was allowed to feed my pokémon my own food on the tables outside. Apparently they were both trainers in their heyday, and although almost all their team had now past on, or looked after their children, though apparently they had a kadabra named Garth and –quite scarily – an ariados named Vox that cooked the food. I was understandably freaked out at first, then subsequently amazed that pokémon could be trained well enough to perform cooking duties. More than that, that they had managed to train a kadabra – a creature I knew would crush the mind of anyone it didn't like – enough to cook food for a living.

I wondered just how much people relied on the creatures in this world, as well as how everyone managed to be a much better trainer than me. Though everyone I had met was far older than me and far more experienced, I still had to advance well enough to change the world within the year.

I placed my bag on the floor and pulled out two metal dishes I'd bought on my way to the cafe. In addition I had a small bag of pokémon feed – it looked like glorified pellets and smelt like processed stale meat and eggs – that was supposedly good enough to be viewed as a meal for pokémon. I sniffed one and popped it in my mouth curiously. It wasn't brilliant, yet it was still edible and had taste. Though I knew I would rather eat food fresh from the environment around me, and a part of me told me I should treat my pokémon to the same courtesy. At least if we all ate roughly the same foods, the creatures wouldn't have cause to become jealous and violent.

I placed the two bowls on the ground near my feet and poured what I guessed was an equal measure into both. I double checked to make sure before I snapped both balls off my bandolier and called out both my pokémon. They appeared together, looking equally as confused as the other. Xander growled at Loki, whilst Loki hissed at Xander. Inwardly, I cursed myself for the mistake. Last time I had let them both out together, Loki was new to my team, and Xander was simply for my protection.

"Guys, it's okay," I told them both, jumping from my chair and sitting level with them. The movement made the world spin, but I squinted hard enough to push the feeling away. "You're on the same side now, okay?" I said to the two, placing a hand on each of their heads. "We're team mates, comrades... friends." The last part was nothing more than a blatant lie at the time, though it seemed the pokémon were beginning to understand. "We're part of a pack now, you understand?" I assumed animalistic terms would make more sense to them – even if they were just human defined names. I moved my hands from their heads and gripped a pellet of food in each, holding it before each of them. "I've got you both some food, but-" I snapped it away as they both lunged for it, and looked at me with the same bewildered expression. "You're not getting any until you accept each other's presence and wait for it." It took a good minute for me to stop playing hide-the-food until the duo got the hint. Thankfully, by the time I'd put my point across, they seemed happy enough to cooperate, and I gave them both their bowls of food.

Granted though, the game had left me partially soaked and covered in small cuts and bites. But it was worth it to begin teaching them both who was their master.

I watched them for a bit, just basking in their presence as they ate in relative seclusion to each other. However, when they had both finished, it seemed they realised they were in fact, now joint together. They made small grunts and growls at each other, took in the other's scent, and thankfully decided that neither was a threat. They quite happily sat by my feet, stomachs full and communicating in primal noises. I found myself following their conversation without ever knowing what was going on. Obviously they could understand each other, yet somewhere along the lines, something had stopped humans from understanding them. I knew that psychics could communicate with humans with no adverse affects to the human, and had gathered from Loki's eerie dead rat theatre he had some degree of psychic talent to him. If I trained him enough, I knew I could get him to begin communicating within human languages.

The only problem with it, like everything else, was the element of time. Time was my enemy here, not my ally, and I was fighting it every step of the way on my journey.

By the time my food came, I'd very nearly passed the point of hunger. I smiled and endured the old man's praises of how civilised my pokémon were – I knew it was only because they were fed and sated – before I tucked into my meal. It was heavenly and didn't last anywhere near as long as I would have liked it too. I burped and reached for my cup, swilling the coffee within. Likely that food was to keep me going for the majority of the day, if not the day after, alongside meagre rations of energy bars and water. I'd all but exhausted my funds buying the pokémon dishes, the food and a phone for myself. Given the cheap price tag, I knew it was an old make and model, but it didn't matter to me. I'd collected the phone numbers of Jennifer and Birch both without ever having a phone.

Besides, I didn't need a new-fangled phone that could access the internet at any given location above ground or take a picture with so-and-so amount of pixels of digital quality. I just needed a phone. I'd grown up in a war camp as a soldier, and so I knew the basics of how to adapt electronics to a situation. While I was nowhere near the best – in fact, I'm certain I was the least talented of everyone I knew in that regard – I still knew enough to get by. I could fix it so the battery would last a little longer, and so that I could pick up signal up to thirty feet below ground – providing there was no interference by metal walls or metallic or electronic pokémon. With everything I bought in the store, in addition to the supplies I bought to 'upgrade' my phone, as well as my breakfast, I had roughly eighteen poké to my name. It allowed me to get one more coffee, thankfully – I desperately needed the caffeine – and still have roughly sixteen left, which was probably enough to get a room for the night.

I winced again at the thought of my previous night on the town. I'd had well over two hundred and fifteen poké then. It meant that Hoenn alcohol was expensive, I'd drunk far too much, or I'd been buying rounds for me and Adryan both. Or likely, all three.

Xander croaked at my feet, drawing my attention. I glared at Loki at he attempted to slash through the shoelaces on my boots, and he gave me a look I can only think he deemed sheepish. I shook my head and laughed at his antics, though still tapped him lightly on the head with a guidebook from my bag. While his antics amused me, I wasn't going to let him unleash his tricks on me.

I flickered through my book and read up as much as I could on lotad and sableye. Apparently the former would begin the evolutionary process into a lombre at roughly fourteen months of age, providing they had enough experience in battle, and the latter would never evolve. It caught my attention, though I couldn't very well say enough to change it. Unfortunately, I knew nothing of sableye in my time, so couldn't say for sure whether or not they could evolve. Instead I was left simply to just follow the current – if not, to me, outdated – information.

I plucked the pokédex from my pocket and activated it. Once everything was loaded I hit the scan button and placed it above Xander, and was forced to wait yet again. Once it worked I scanned through the useless information, such as general lotad information and evolutionary chains to find the information I needed. Apparently Xander was only ten months old. It meant he still had another four months to even begin turning into his next form. Though I did notice that his foremost front legs did look the tiniest fraction longer than those at his back, and he seemed an inch or two taller than the average height my pokédex relayed to me.

It meant he was already becoming a lombre, and I was going to have to train him enough to play catch-up with his body's changes.

Loki was only three months old, according to my pokédex, which explained a lot about him. It meant he still had a long way to go to achieve his power – I knew that most pokémon continued to get stronger and develop until they were about eight years and four months old, which was roughly a hundred months. From the top of my head, stronger pokémon like alakazam, kingdra and rhyperior took roughly seven years to fully transition into their final forms, and pokémon like growlithe, pikachu and staryu about six years. Of course, they would continue to get more powerful after that age, but I knew it was roughly the cut off for when they'd stop growing and metamorphosing.

I grimaced once I noticed my coffee had ran cold. I briefly debated giving the pokémon it, which I quickly decided against. I had a hyperactive handful enough in Loki, I didn't want him running around on a caffeine high. Xander on the other hand would most likely have an adverse reaction to it. I knew that it had been proven that caffeine didn't lead to dehydration in humans, though giving it to a water pokémon was another story. Something in the drug affected with the pokémon's natural water-producing glands and dried them out. I might not have been that friendly with Xander, but I didn't want him dying anytime soon.

Instead I pulled a face and drained the rest of the cup. I quickly placed my dirty plate and cup in the inside of the cafe and ordered another coffee fast enough to ensure my pokémon didn't decide to maul each other or anything in my absence. I sat back down and poured Xander some water into his bowl, and then splashed some over his head. He croaked happily and waddled towards the bowl, where he seemed to be trying to drink from it and swim in it at once. I gave the rest of the bottle itself to Loki, and after teaching him how to drink from it without spilling it everywhere, let him supervise himself. Of course, once he was finished, he decided it was the most fun thing ever to crush the plastic again and again, creating more and more noise.

Pokémon were not a good cure for a hangover.

* * *

Another coffee and one Loki mercifully recalled to his poké ball later, I made way out of the town and towards the outskirts out route one hundred and three. I needed to train my pokémon somewhat, and the food had done a good job in absorbing most of the drug in my body. From my shoulder, Xander croaked a happy sound, even as he bobbed along. I don't know what made him decide my shoulder was a great perch, but the creature had clumsily attempted to clamber onto it when I picked up the remnants of Loki's plastic bottle-turned new fun toy.

It was strange carrying the creature on my shoulder. While he weighed nothing more than three kilos at most, he was nearly half a metre tall, including his leaf. It meant he was perched precariously between my shoulder, back and backpack, and was tall enough to look over my head. His weight didn't bother me; I was used to having to carry packs weighing anything upwards from twelve kilos. His three kilo weight was a feather in comparison.

More than that, the creature cooled my head, and thus me. Despite the fact he was greatly attuned to water, he was still sharing a symbiotic relationship with a plant. It meant that even though the sun should have dried him out, the plant on his head still needed enough sunlight and nourishment to survive. Xander himself provided the water and nutrients it needed, all the plant required in addition was sunlight, carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Again I was struck by the notion that my knowledge was far too different to that of people native to present time.

I found a clearing within the start of the route and let Loki out again, giving him a moment to adjust before I placed Xander on the ground. Given what I'd learnt from the book, no matter how fast a sableye was, it would always let its opponent attack first to ensure it could counter the attacks effectively. That pretty much meant it was relatively useless training Loki to move faster if he was only going to let the opponent fall into a trap. On the other hand, it still meant the foe could avoid the trap, so he'd still need some speed avoiding it. Other than that, he was supposedly effective in both taking and giving long range and close-up damage, and like any pokémon could perform attacks of his element easier. The only problem was, attacks of darkness were produced with negative energy, a sort of bad karma, and ghostly attacks were formed from the energy of malevolent spirits in their surroundings.

Honestly, I didn't really want to let him practice either until I knew for certain he was under my control.

Xander however, was pretty much feeble at everything but dishing out and taking long-range hits. He could heal and move faster in the rain, and had a natural affinity with water, as well as both the sun and plants.

Ideally, I would train their downfalls, though first I actually had to train them in the basics. Of course, I had no idea how to truly start such a thing.

"We're going to play a game," I told them both, deciding on something. I knew they were both relatively young, so I assumed training in the guise of playing would work well. "Humans call it tag," I told them, crouching down as far as I could to their level. I thought hard and fast, trying to put it into terms they'd understand. "One of you has the pokérus. The other has to run away and avoid getting captured. If the one with the pokérus touches you-" I tapped Xander on the leaf for emphasis, "-then you have to chase then and give it back. You guys understand?"

They looked up at me with what I hoped was understanding, but was more likely just plain attention. "Alright guys, I want you to remember; no hurting the other, alright? All you need to do is _touch_ them; no biting, no scratching, no inflicting injuries." I stood and threw my arms into the air. "Alright, go!"

Instead, they both remained there with equally stumped expressions.

Well, that was anti-climatic.

Obviously my plan ended in failure. Instead I just told Xander to squirt Loki with a tiny blast of water and watched as they chased each other around the clearing.

Loki seemed to understand quickly it was all a game, though still seemed somehow sinister in his attempts. Xander scuttled around as fast as he could on six stumpy legs, though Loki would continually dive into the shade of a tree and embrace his ghostly abilities. Quite often he leapt through a tree or the ground itself and managed to catch Xander with a rake of his claws. I went to stop them at first, though quickly realised they were in fact, non-lethal blows. In fact, it seemed nothing more than an equivalent of cuts and scrapes kids would get playing chase or climbing trees. Regardless, each time Loki managed to scratch Xander, he would retaliate by knocking the ghost off his feet with a blast of water.

All in all, it was fun to watch. I found myself becoming distracted by their antics more often than I could keep attention on my book.

Thankfully I caught them in time as a pachirisu ran at them from nowhere. It looked at them both with its grey eyes, chittering as it stretched out its white body, rubbing small paws against its yellow cheeks. Static discharged randomly from the cheeks on its face and the blue spikes of its tail, and equally blue ears flicked in either direction.

It took all of a moment for both my pokémon to decide to chase it.

I groaned and pushed myself to my feet. Of course my pokémon would decide to gang up on a creature capable of frying us all with a few hundred volts of electricity, wouldn't they? "Loki! Xander! Stop!" I barked, even as the squirrel rushed past me. My pokémon both stopped by my side, panting slightly and with wide grins on their faces.

The human the pachirisu ran to, however, didn't seem to find it as enjoyable. He was a strange weed of a man with bottle-black hair that flopped over his face. He was nearly as tall as me, and given the rust-coloured stubble growing from his chin, he must have been around my age. He had a crimson red v-neck tee that he tucked into faded black jeans, and a pair of worn black boots covered his feet. All in all, he didn't look anything like the sort of person that would own a blue and white squirrel.

He took all of two seconds to decide he wanted a fight.

"The hell you doin'?" he shrieked at me, advancing a step. The pokémon on his shoulder bared its teeth and hissed at me and my pokémon, and I felt the urge to laugh at them both. He seemed to have no muscle mass to him, and looked as if he hadn't eaten right in a long time. It wasn't through ego alone that I decided he wouldn't stand a chance if he did decide to start a fight.

"You think it's funny to let your pokémon run 'round and attack others?" he continued, stomping forth another step.

I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes at him. If he had been in normal shape, or had a threatening pokémon by his side – or both – I would have found myself vaguely intimidated. However, instead I regarded him as nothing more than a joke. I had several years of training as a solider behind me; he looked like he would struggle to open a paper door.

So I found myself opting to simply beat him with words. "Depends if the trainer's stupid enough to let their pokémon run at two potentially wild pokémon." I folded my arms and glared at him – even if I did have to look up an inch or two. Inside, my heart was beginning to race. I knew if he wanted to fight me _myself_, I would have no problem winning. My pokémon on the other hand, might struggle. After all, Xander had only fought a wild electrike, and Loki had yet to battle anything.

"They would have stayed only chasing each other if your pokémon had left them alone," I told him, putting a little authority into my voice. "Maybe if you had a little control over your pokémon..."

That seemed to push him over the edge. He trembled in visible anger as he snatched a poké ball from his belt. "Oh, that's it!" he declared with furious passion. "I'm gonna pound you _and_ your pokémon into the ground!" He threw the ball to the floor and caught it as it exploded open and shot back into his hand. The light formed a treecko, which was nearly the same green as the grass, save for the red of its stomach. "Come on, let's do this," he barked at me. "Or are you afraid?"

Honestly, I was a little. I had to compete in a pokémon battle that I had no idea how to manage. Thankfully, I knew a little about treecko, and a few weaknesses I could exploit. I looked down and saw not only Loki hopping from foot-to-foot in delight, but Xander growling lowly at the new menace. Obviously they both wanted to fight, though I felt confident in sending out Xander first. I said his name and nodded towards the treecko, and he understood instantly.

Before the gecko could even blink Xander was upon it, warbling as he bit into the creature's scaled skin. The pokemon's trainer shrieked in alarm and quickly threw out every command he could think of, successfully confusing not only me and Xander, but his own pokémon by the looks of it. The treecko, however, seemed to just decide to rely on its own battling technique.

It flipped up and slammed its tail into Xander's head with enough force to make him flip over, startled and disgruntled. It then leapt at him and began scratching with all its might at his exposed underside, its tiny claws glowing a faint white.

Xander croaked and bit down on one of the gecko's arms. He shook the creature with feral might, managing to shake it this way and that. The treecko slammed him with its tail even as he bit harder and began to shake with more force. Eventually Xander growled and shot the gecko away with a blast of water that seemed to have the force of a cannon. He croaked once more and spat another volley of water, though this seemed to have small bubbles that flew out with it. It shattered into the treecko with virulent force, enough for me to hear the crack of bone like it happened right next to me.

The treecko slammed down hard moments later with a bone-jarring thud. One of its legs was bent awkwardly from the landing or the attacks, and judging by its laboured breathing it had broken one or two of its ribs – if not punctured its lung.

Mercifully, the trainer was quick to recall it. He snarled at me and looked torn between wanting to run and heal the treecko or setting his next pokémon on me myself. I breathed a small, somewhat relieved breath to myself. Obviously he wasn't that experienced of a trainer either.

Finally he decided to go with option of fight. Another poké ball cracked open, this time revealing a machop from its containment. The grey skinned creature growled at us all, flexing muscles the species trained each day of their lives.

I quickly recalled Xander in a flash of light. He was weakened and injured, which left it to Loki. Thankfully, he had an advantage over the machop.

I looked down at the ghost at my legs. "Get'em," I said, flicking my head towards them both.

Loki wasted no time. He cackled and raced forth, insane laughter driving the machop wild. It grunted and swung a fist at him, only to pass completely through the pokémon. Loki laughed to himself once more, merry in his torment of the creature.

Again and again the machop attacked, though each blow ended in equal failure. His trainer kept screaming at it to use its foresight to seek out Loki's weak spots, though the trickster's continual torment stopped it from doing anything but attacking.

Loki grabbed the machop's hand after another blow. He cackled once more and threw the pokémon to the side, raking his claws across its exposed stomach. Then Loki was on it again, claws and teeth merrily attacking the creature. He bit into its neck and pierced skin enough for blood to spurt out and into his mouth.

And suddenly, it was like someone had flipped a switch.

Loki went _crazy_. Not the kind of crazy as in old –woman-shouting-at-lampposts-crazy, but crazy as in battle-fever-crazy. His claws and teeth became nothing but a blur as he buried them deeper and deeper in the machop, eager to feel more blood, to embrace and rejoice in the life that pooled around him.

"Loki stop!" I screamed at him. He wasn't listening. He continued to slash away at the screaming creature, heedless of what flew out of it. I only managed to recall the ghost as what I'm sure was a piece of severed intestine flew through the air.

In the wake of Loki's recall, he left the trainer with a mangled mess of a machop. I winced inwardly at the trainer's expression of sheer horror. He obviously wasn't used to anything like that, which just slightly amazed me.

I tried my best to offer a small apology as he spluttered and screamed about the state of his pokémon.

"_Listen!_" I snapped, finally having enough. "You need to learn; pokémon are feral creatures. They go around mauling each other, not caring about whether the other lives or dies. Unless you don't understand that, stop blubbering now! Pokémon live and pokémon die, but when they're under our control, they're weapons, no matter whether they're also our allies or tools." He quieted and looked at me in slight shock. Obviously he wasn't used to people having my sort of attitude, though mine was only common place from my own time. "They're weapons," I explained to him, "and like any weapon, you need to understand that when you use it, someone, somewhere is going to get hurt."

He blinked, growled and shoved me in the chest. I only just caught the small flash of yellow and orange paper notes in my hands before I punched him in retaliation. He recalled his pokémon as quickly as he could and raced off towards town, no doubt to get his pokémon healed.

I, on the other hand, was frozen on the spot. Why did he give me money? I knew trainers battled for fun and to train their pokémon, yet I'd never heard of money being exchanged at the end. Had I scared him that much he decided to pay me off? Or was he paying me for my advice? I threw both thoughts away. I'd seen many trainers that looked considerably wealthier than me, and it was the only logical conclusion of how trainers would make money on the road. People would make their pokémon fight and bet on the winner. It was like cock fighting or bear baiting, though somehow legal despite the former's outlaw.

It didn't make much sense to me. Then again, not much in the new world did.

I stuffed the notes in my wallet. At least, if nothing else, I was an extra fifteen poké better off. My fingers reached up and caught on Loki's poké ball, hesitantly tracing the contours of the design. He'd gone crazy when he tasted blood. I knew most creatures of darkness did, though I'd – foolishly – hoped that he would be different.

I needed to see how bad it was.

I snatched the ball off the bandolier and unleashed the beast within. Loki appeared with a deep, guttural hiss that I'd never heard before. Even as the light faded around him, he growled a deep, threatening growl at me, fangs bared and still coated in blood. I backed away and felt a brief spike of cold fear race up my spine. If I had a gun in my hands, I had no doubt I would have shot him then and there. However, I was completely defenceless.

Which gave him a perfect chance to attack.

He leapt at me in a flurry of teeth and claws, and I yelped as he bit down, hard into my arm. I struggled to pry to creature off even as his claws began to shred at my chest. Panicking, I completely forgot about his poké ball. It was only when he accidentally caught it that he was sucked back into the orb. I collapsed to the floor, panting for breath, barely aware of the throbbing pain in my arm. My top was shredded in various places, as was my chest, and I had tooth marks each an inch deep puncturing my arm.

I'd won my battle, but lost Loki.

I sighed long and hard as I reached into my bag and pulled out a first aid kit. I tried to pretend that I wanted to cry only because of the burn of antiseptic on my wounds. I wasn't fooling myself. I'd got my hopes up so high about the creature, only to have them torn down in the worst possible way. I knew he was only an infant, and that given time, I could train him enough to break such urges, but my brain wasn't working properly at that time. I was just filled with the undeniable feeling that I'd failed not only myself, but my pokémon, and worst of all; Jennifer. The woman had given up everything to help me try to save the world, and within the first few weeks, I'd failed her. She'd taken me in and treated me as a mother would, ensuring I was ready for the new world. Fuck the celebi that told her everything, _she_ was the one that helped _me_ in this new world.

I decided then and there that I would succeed, if only so I didn't fail her. I never had a mother of my own, and Jennifer was the closest thing I had to one – even if I'd known her for a week and she was to die within a few months.

I'd find out later that most people lost their first battles, and some would even be so out of their depth that their pokémon would die. But at that time, it didn't matter to me. I'd won my first battle, but lost one of my pokémon's sanity in the process.

Victory always has a price, after all.


	12. Curve Balls

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Curve Balls**

**

* * *

**_Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing._~ Albert Schweitzer

**-O-O-O-**

_"The reason why groups such as Team Rocket and Galactic got away with so much is actually quite obvious, if you stop to think about it. They snuck in through the cracks with 'good intentions' - helping people that no one else wanted to, aiding and befriending the young, naive trainers who had only started their journeys and were convinced the world hated them. If you were given everything on a plate at the start of your journey, would you not try to repay whoever helped you as much as you could? It's how they recruited so many; take the young kids, the homeless, the ex-cons and the drug addicts. You take everyone no one cares about, and you build an army of evil behind a wall of charity work._

_Who's actually going to accuse charity workers of wanting world domination?"_

- Superintendent Jane Foxglove, Viridian City Police Department. _(Exert from an interview regarding the actions of villainous 'teams' in Kanto and beyond. January 2nd, 3010)_

**-O-O-O-**

I returned to my room at the centre that day defeated and hollow. Adryan wasn't in much of a chatty mood – not that I could blame him, if my pain was anything to go by. It seemed he'd woken up at some time during the morning and managed to have a shower, for most of his clothes were on the floor, and so was a still damp towel. He snored once, loudly, and kicked at the covers in his sleep, though even that wasn't enough to make me laugh. I was broken, beaten and weary. Yet again the self-doubt came on, hitting me harder than ever. Though without him there to distract me, I had to find another way of taking my mind off of everything.

I leant back on my bed and released Xander, letting him waddle along both my bed and myself. Despite a few unhealed scratches, he seemed perfectly fine to settle on my stomach, and with one hand I stroked the creature's head. I felt small injuries there I hadn't noticed, though remained by my decision not to get him healed from the centre. In my opinion, it was rather pointless. Trainers would rush to get their pokémon healed after every cut and scrape, though would let their own similar injuries heal with time. Pokémon were living creatures too, and healed at rates faster than humans. If we could deal with scabs and scratches, so could a pokémon.

Though I also didn't want any pokémon health professional to know how badly I'd screwed up with Loki.

I fumbled around one handed for the remote for the television, all the while trying not to displace Xander. He croaked irritably as I jostled him from his comfortable spot and squirted me in the face with a small spit of water. I whipped my head round to glare at him, though found he was wearing the tightest of grins. He could sense I was upset. I think I realised then and there that we were actually becoming friends in our travels, and that I wasn't ever like to be alone.

I smiled at him and scratched his chin as I switched on the television. Loud, blaring music rumbled out of the television, which made me yelp and hit the mute button as quickly as I could. All it elicited from Adryan was another snore, which made Xander croak a sound that was nearly laughter.

However, all my attention on them died as I caught sight of the news report playing. I stared in rapt interest at the screen even as I fumbled with the volume enough to hear it again at a normal volume.

"_**...we bring you this report live from the studio,"**_ the reporter was saying. On screen, there was no person visible, though the reporter was obviously female, judging by the voice. Instead, the screen showed a small thirty second clip of film on a constant loop, a constant cycle of the same police officers cordoning off a town from the public, even as people in biohazard suits walked in.

"_**There has been an outbreak in Petalburg City, similar to that in Oldale town mere days ago. At the moment, no persons are allowed in or out of the city, and all trainers are advised to seek alternative routes around the city."**_

I watched the report with wide, numb eyes. It wasn't just a leak like Oldale's; there were never people blocking the entrance in such a way. When we'd reached the limits, we'd simply been informed by two police officers on duty, yet could see everything in town was still going on much the same as before.

Petalburg's however, was another story.

Behind the cameras was the city itself, though it was completely barren. The only movement that could be seen were the people in biohazard suits moving in and out of a white tent erected on the border. The urgency and horror in the policemen's eyes said volumes about what was really going on in the city.

Someone had died.

This new virus they feared about had claimed a victim, so the people in biohazard suits were trying to ensure it was neither contagious nor airborne or the like. I cursed, wondering why I had never heard of anything like this in my time. I only knew of one wide-spread virus; it was one we suffered with each day, one that had made the people and the pokémon violent enough for us to begin setting up small guard camps around clusters of people. I frowned, chewing my lip as I thought about it. I knew the basic histories of the virus; it was first prevalent in Sinnoh about two years from the current time. Little after that Mount Coronet had exploded and taken the continent with it, though the virus reached Hoenn eight years later.

In ten years the virus would spread over Hoenn, and with everything else that happened, would culminate into the world I knew. This was far too early; this was nothing more than a small scare that would likely pass quickly. It wasn't the virus I knew and feared, which made me breath a heavy sigh of relief.

The next line of text that rolled over the screen caught my attention instantly.

"_Pathornogix are lending hundreds of relief workers and counter-infection medicines."_

I blinked. Who were Pathornogix? Were they the villainous team Jennifer had mentioned to me? Were they the ones I had to leave to be defeated by a youngster trainer? Or were they something else entirely? They could be merely a group of do-gooders, like many of the charity groups that sent relief to locations of natural disasters. To my limited knowledge, they weren't anything - I'd never heard of them before, which surely meant that they weren't a threat.

At least, that's what I convinced myself.

But it begged the point; what if this were to lead to the virus I knew being leaked in Sinnoh? Everything I knew of my history's past was still this world's future, it seemed.

And then, realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks.

That little devil imp Celebi never told me anything about what I needed to do because _surely_, I already knew what was going to happen! I knew what was going to happen to this world, because to me, it was my past! I couldn't believe something so garishly obvious had been staring me in the face the whole while, and yet, I'd been unable to see it the whole while.

Silently, I cursed the fact that I'd never paid much attention to history's details.

I knew how to kill five hundred pokémon in quick, efficient ways, how to survive in the wilderness, how to effectively use fifteen different firearms and six different bladed weapon styles. But all of that was useless because I didn't know enough about my own history.

I banished the thought away. Celebi had chosen me in that moment, so I must have known just enough to be able to change everything. It meant everything I did know had to be useable enough to change it all.

Though how much did I actually know?

I needed to write down and recall everything I knew, though with Adryan around, it was too risky. I couldn't give him prior knowledge of everything to happen; either he'd think I was to be a part of it, that I had been abusing the power of psychics, or he'd realise I was actually from the future. Any of those things would alienate him from me and make him run six hundred miles in the other direction, and probably call the scientists on the way.

I couldn't risk it. I was dependant on him in those times; he was my guide to this foreign world. If I fucked up well enough to scare him away, I'd be truly on my own, and I'd be forced to learn about this world entirely by myself.

I bit my lip and tried to silently recall everything. He'd be leaving me in Rustboro, I knew that much. I had until then to garner the information I needed about the world, so that I was capable of surviving on my own. After that, he'd leave, and I could safely note down everything I could remember of what was to happen.

It was a gamble, leaving it that long. Something could happen within the time it took me to get to Rustboro, something that I was meant to change. I looked again at the report. Petalburg was closed... and that was one of the cities we had to pass through on foot to get to Rustboro.

Though Adryan had a flygon that could fly us over. Surely it could fly us all the way to Rustboro easily. That meant it would probably be at most a week until Adryan and I parted ways. The realisation made me slightly depressed, though I focused past such feelings. I had a week to be normal, a week to be as carefree as I could within this time.

After that, I had to start saving the world.

All my serious thoughts died in my mind moments later as Adryan woke up, eyelids fluttering heavily. He groaned and pulled a pillow over his head, trying in vain to block out the noise of the news channel.

"Does it... have... so loud?" he mumbled incoherently from underneath his pillow.

"Rough?" I asked with a laugh. He groaned once more and I sobered. "There's something happening in Petalburg, looks like we might have to take another way around."

He woke instantly and shot bolt upright.

"Wha?" he grunted as he blindly searched for his glasses. He squinted at the television screen, tensing as he returned his sight and was able to read the screen. A curse formed on his lips as he watched it, completely paling."No way," he whispered.

I looked at him, surprised by his reaction. "You know someone there?"

He shook his head, though gripped it moments later. Obviously he was still suffering from the previous night. "I just didn't think anything like that would happen. I mean... it's _spreading._"

I would have leapt at him, demanding answers had it not been for Xander on my lap. "What do you mean?" I asked him, afraid he had inside knowledge.

"It was in Oldale a few days ago," he said in a patronising tone. "The nearest civilisations to there are Littleroot and Petalburg. If it hits Littleroot too, it could turn into a pandemic."

"It won't turn into a pandemic," I stated confidently. I'd know if a pandemic had spread sometime in my past. I'd never heard of such a thing, so was more than confident in my answer.

"Hopefully not," he grunted as he tapped a finger against his chin. "We'll need to take another route to Rustboro then."

I shrugged and put my thoughts on the table "Irenui?"

"Suppose," he conceded. He groaned and attempted to pull himself out of his bed. "I'll feed her and Siren, let her have a fly to warm up a bit." He heaved and shot forwards in a flash, clutching his stomach in pain. "Urgh... never drinking again," he swore, attempting to move as little as possible. "She should be up for flying in about two hours."

I glanced at the clock. Fourteen hundred hours. It meant most likely we'd be flying for a good portion of the afternoon, if not some of the night too. I'd have been more confident if I were flying on something that could have a source of light around it, like a charizard, though I had faith Adryan would make us fly face-first into a ditch.

Though as he lurched again in hungover sickness, my faith in him was quickly lost.

"Here," I said as I reached into my bag. I pulled out the miracle invention of painkillers and tossed the pack to him. "And have a _lot_ of water."

He caught the pack and threw a grin at me. "Thanks _mother_," he muttered. He groaned and pressed his palms to his temples and pressed down. "How much did I have to drink last night?" he groaned, pained.

"A lot," I said with a shrug. I thought about it for a second. I couldn't remember the night, which meant most likely, he couldn't either. I could have some fun. "I mean, at one point, you were dancing with this little old lady..."

"Oh gods..." he groaned and buried his face in his hands. "_Please_ tell me I didn't do that."

I grinned. "What would you like me to say instead? Though it was quite funny when she tried to kiss you. I mean, her teeth _did_ fall out whilst you were dancing."

"Oh _gods_," he breathed. He leapt to his feet as quickly as he could and swallowed two pills then and there. "I don't want know anymore. I'll come back and let you know when we're ready to fly."

He left the room and I couldn't help but grin to myself. Being evil was fun.

* * *

It turned out Irenui wasn't ready to fly until seventeen hundred hours. Adryan had called up professor Birch to withdraw a few pokémon from his care while he let Irenui have a fly around. Apparently it was for when he left Rustboro; he was going to make a swift exit towards somewhere he wanted to go and train. I'd asked where, but he'd told me emphatically I shouldn't dare think about going anywhere near there for a good long, but he'd explain it to me whilst we were flying.

I wasn't going to argue. It meant we'd have something more to talk about whilst we were up in the air. I needed to tell him about Loki too, and decided I would tell him whilst we were in the sky. If nothing else, I wouldn't be convinced into letting him out.

Before we left, I decided to have a shower. I was still caked in dry blood from Loki's earlier attack, though thankfully it was shielded underneath my clothes, and Adryan had been too ill or preoccupied to notice my shredded attire. I filled the sink up with water and let Xander attempt to squeeze in as I had a shower of my own.

When I finished, Xander had somehow managed to squeeze himself somewhat awkwardly into the sink. I left him there and wrapped a towel around myself as I left him there and returned to gather my clothes from my pack. Adryan was waiting in the room already, and once he caught sight of me, he sat there staring at my chest.

I felt like a prize on a podium. Before I could even formulate a witty reply he said, "Those don't look like any scars I've seen before."

I blinked before I realised what he was talking about. I had three bullet wounds over my chest; one on my right pectoral, another just above my pelvis on the left, and the final one just above my right kidney. While I never forgot the events that lead up to each scar, I often forgot that I ever had them. Scars, like birthmarks, were often forgettable if they were merely aesthetic and out of sight.

I shrugged and grabbed my clothes. "Bullet wounds," I said simply.

He looked like he'd guessed as much, but the confirmation still shocked him enough to jaw his jaw ever so slightly. "How'd you get those?" he asked.

I smirked. "I got shot."

"_Ha," _he drawled. "Seriously, how'd you get them? Or is it too personal?"

I bit my bottom lip. The last two had been obtained in confusion because of friendly fire in a virus outbreak, and another when I'd had to escort someone to another camp. Revealing any details about those would say too much about my past. I fingered the one near my kidney and could remember the events as if they had only just happened.

"I was on guard duty with my station," I said, carefully choosing my words. He could believe I was an enlisted soldier somewhere, as long as he didn't ask where or when. Then I'd have to start to really think fast. "There was this little old lady that was approaching the guard perimeter, and well, she _seemed_ harmless enough." I couldn't help but scoff at that. My, how people could use appearance to hide all sorts of motive. "But we had to check her to make sure, regardless. I was the one that had to search her. Once I got close enough, she suddenly whipped a pistol out of her pants and shot me here-" I pointed to the scar. "She got past me and shot the other guard on duty with either a precision or lucky-as-hell shot." I shrugged. Not like it mattered now anyway. "She went mad. Started shooting anyone and anything she could find, screaming how we'd murdered her only grandson and left her completely alone in the world."

Adryan seemed to be torn between disbelief and amazement at my tale. "Was she right? I mean, were you guys responsible?"

I shrugged once more. "Some people can handle what you see in the army, others can't. He saw something he couldn't cope with, and three days later blew his brains out."

What I told him was mostly true, at least. The real truth was he was part of another base camp. He came into ours and we treated him as kin, though the whole time he was planning to kill us all and expand his own group. We found out and confronted him, and rather than be punished by our standards, he pushed a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. When the old lady arrived, I'd overlooked her as a threat and not searched her thoroughly enough. Because of that, she'd been able to walk past me, pull out a gun I hadn't found and shot me in the gut. She shot the other guard with the one-in-a-million shot and wreaked havoc for us all.

As soon as I'd been bandaged up from the infirmary, I was forced to clean up what little was left with her, as well as scrub the mess floors with a toothbrush.

Needless to say, I never made the same mistake again.

Adryan looked enthralled by my story, and slightly ill at the thought of someone's brains painting the wall. "Wow. I didn't realise Kismet Plains were so bad."

My heart pumped frozen blood and my breath caught. "Well, this wasn't in Kismet Plains. This was in the regional army barracks."

He looked at me with a slow nod. "Wow." He whistled once and pulled his coat tighter around himself. "I didn't realise the north Hoenn corps had it so rough."

I stopped at his words. Was Kismet Plains in the North of Hoenn? Or more, would it qualify for north Hoenn corps? Was there even a north Hoenn corps? I thought about it as quickly as I could. It was near Lavaridge Town, which was just north of Mauville, which was more or less the middle of Hoenn. That meant it should qualify for the northern corps, right?

"Everywhere has it rough," I said, managing to skirt most of his statement. "It's just some things that go on aren't exactly allowed to be public knowledge."

He regarded me with a level stare. "Right," he said, and shrugged. "Well, when you're dressed, I'll be waiting outside with Irenui." He took two steps and smirked. "Take too long and I'll come drag you out for the ride, regardless of whether you're butt-naked or not."

I shook my head at him as he left the room. Only when I was sure I was on my own did I let out the breath I didn't realise I was holding. That was all too close. Somewhere I was going to make a fuck up, and my whole story would unravel like a ball of yarn. As much as I needed Adryan with me to teach me the world, I needed him far away to stop myself revealing too much.

I took a breath to calm myself. As long as I didn't over think things, I'd be okay. I got dressed and packed as quickly as I could and made sure Xander was back in his ball safely before I left the room. Briefly I fingered Loki's ball, wondering what to do with it or not. I could have left it then and there, and made sure that the feral ghost-imp was someone else's problem. But he was _my_ pokémon, _my_ weapon, and hopefully would become my friend. I needed to figure out what to do with him, and how to get him under my control again.

After all, I caught him; he was my responsibility, like it or not.

* * *

Flying was always a fun joy. Flying a night was even better. The entirety of Hoenn's landscape was beautiful; from our sky-high perch we could see as far away as the distant Slateport, Dewford and even begin to visualise the peaks of Meteor falls.

Far below, nothing was visible except the endless sea and a cluster of lights that illuminated every town there was within sight.

"It's beautiful," I breathed, awed.

I felt Adryan nod. "Sure is."

Along the first part of the journey, we'd talked about mostly aimless stuff; the current affairs of Hoenn, the state of the other countries and a little about Adryan's experiences in the other regions, where he'd managed to buy a saddle specifically made for a flygon, and why it was capable of fitting two people on it. I also managed to get the information out of him about where he was heading off after Rustboro.

He was supposedly headed to the Origin Cluster. He explained to me that every country had a specific location which was constantly full of extremely strong pokémon that held more than enough power to level towns, if not the whole country. Each country's Elite Four, however, guarded the entrances and would routinely patrol to ensure that no pokémon were escaping. It was supposedly Cerulean Cave in Kanto, Mount Silver in Johto, and Stark Mountain in Sinnoh.

He told me that only those who had beaten a member of the Elite Four or obtained a total of at least seventy-five badges could be allowed in. He told me it was a true test of survival and skill; you were often lucky if you could see your hand in front of your face in there. Having a pokémon light up the area often drew attention from wild pokémon he told me even the Elite Four struggled when they faced them two-on-one.

The Origin Cluster was supposedly a network of underground tunnels that linked Origin, Terra and Marine Cave, the Sky Pillar and a place called the Scorched Slab. I asked him what that was, as I'd never heard of such a location before. He explained to me that it was a strange cave nearby Fortree that everyone had once believed held nothing within. However, he explained to me that within the past few years it had begun to live up to it's name; unless you had a fire pokémon with you, you were likely to die of heat exposure within a few minutes. It was supposedly hot enough to melt ice pokémon, and to even dry out water pokémon. Fire pokémon could supposedly redirect the heat to ensure the trainer's survival.

The networks were supposedly filled with toxic clouds, acidic rivers and lava lakes. Apparently, those were the _appealing_ factors. When I asked why in any holy deity's name he'd want to traverse it, he simply smiled and said it was a challenge. If he and his pokémon could survive even a fortnight in there, they'd be able to win a tournament.

I couldn't fault his logic.

I shuddered as my breath fogged before me. We were flying well over five thousand feet in the air, which meant that I was beginning to feel the cold. It must have been roughly zero degrees in centigrade, and there I was flying in nothing but a short tee. I'd packed nothing but summer based clothes, not expecting to be having to deal with near-zero temperatures at any time in Hoenn. The coldest winter they'd _ever_ had was still as warm as six degrees centigrade. Cold and Hoenn just never went together in the same sentence.

I scowled and watched more of my breath fog in front of my face. Seeking warmth I wrapped my arms tighter around Adryan's waist and buried myself further in his back, trying in vain to share some of his body heat. For someone who complained about feeling the cold, he was doing well at such altitudes, in fact it felt like he possessed an inner furnace, given the heat it was giving off.

I barely caught his grunt over the wind, and instead caught his meaning by the slight turn in his spine when I pressed closer as he tried to see what was wrong.

"S'cold..." I muttered into his coat.

He laughed all the way from his stomach at me. "I _did_ tell you it would get cold up here. But would you listen? _Nooo! _You were all like; 'I can deal with cold'."

I grumbled and squeezed his waist tight enough to cause him pain. He yelped and I smirked. "I take back my earlier statement."

He laughed louder than I did, though I was still dealing with the sudden feeling of cold attacking my poor, exposed arms. He leant forward and rubbed Irenui's neck, shouting his question over the winds at her. She roared back an answer, and he leant back into a more relaxed position.

"She's doing fine," he translated for me. "The cold's why I had to get her to warm up first," he explained, pulling lightly on the reigns of the saddle. "Dragons are weak to cold; they need to start off flying at low altitudes until they've heated up enough to head higher."

"How did you learn all of this?" I wondered aloud.

I felt him shrug more than I saw it. "Ten years of being a trainer, coupled with a lot of research and a damn sight more mistakes. But hey, you learn from them, right? Besides-" I felt him shrug once more, "-you're a trainer too. You'll make mistakes no matter what you do, no matter how experienced you are. They're just a sign you've still got more to learn."

What he said made me feel a lot better about my own mistakes. It seemed that no matter what, whatever mistake you made was always the worst one to happen in the entirety of history. I still knew mine was pretty bad, but hearing I wasn't alone in making them made me feel confident enough to speak about it.

"I... I fucked up with Loki," I said, leaning my head further up his back. If I was closer to his ears, I wouldn't have to shout or repeat myself, I figured. "Like, _really_ fucked up."

I could tell he was intrigued by the muscle twinge that shot down his neck and back; it meant he had titled his head. I blinked and wondered just how I knew that, though quickly forgot as he asked, "How so?"

I could still see it happening before my eyes. "Some trainer decided to have a battle with me earlier today. Xander beat his pokémon fine enough, but Loki's another story. He was doing fine, right up until he bit the machop's neck hard enough to get blood in his mouth."

Adryan's response was a barely audible, "Oh." Then he laughed. "Man, you're not the only one to do that, you do realise?"

I looked up at the back up his head. "I'm not? But..." My head dropped down again. "He sees everything as a target now. He's that out for blood he even attacked me."

To my surprise, I felt Adryan chuckle once more. "You're not by yourself with that, you know? I did that with Ripper back when he was a duskull. It took me _months_ to get the bastard back to normal, yet when I did, he was stronger than ever, and we'd developed a bond I didn't think we'd ever manage to make as strong otherwise."

I blinked. I truly wasn't alone in how badly I'd screwed up. If Adryan had done it and come out of it, surely that meant I could to. It was like hope shone through me again, and I found myself just a little bit lighter. "How'd you manage to do it?" I asked.

"Elbow grease, a lot of time, training, and buckets of patience," he told me.

Training and elbow grease I could do. Patience and time, that I could not. Time was my enemy, and thus was making my patience near non-existent. It was possible to get Loki to recover, I'd found out that much. I'd just have to find out my own way to do it. Even still, I felt considerably lighter than I had before.

"You have a duskull?" I asked to change the subject.

"Mh-hm," he grunted. "Well, more a dusclops now, but he's slowly turning into a dusknoir."

I thought about the creature. I had never seen one, but knew it took decades for a dusclops to fully change into the demonic dusknoir. It was a creature supposedly capable of taking souls to the afterlife, and was said to be an agent of death itself, collecting souls as and when it was told.

"It must be old then," I said. I knew enough about pokémon evolution to know what I was talking about. When I'd learnt the weak points of pokémon, I'd learnt about how they evolved; it was a way to identify the pokémon's level of threat easier. If it was stressed whilst starting to evolve, it could force itself into the next form prematurely to overcome the threat.

"Ancient," Adryan confirmed. "Old bastard's been around longer than my grandparents; says he can remember when the gyms were first being built in Hoenn."

I tried to do the calculation in my head. "He's old," I decided, intellectually. "Even more so to be evolving into a dusknoir."

"He hasn't got long left 'til he's completely one," he told me. "Then he's going to be classified as a level four threat. Most people are afraid dusknoir will just spirit away any soul they want, just for the hell of it. Truth is, they only take who they're told, and if they take someone early, someone else gets to live a little longer." He shrugged once again, and I knew he didn't know anymore about that topic. "Though I could have sped up his evolution if I got him to keep a reaper cloth nearby."

I was completely confused. "What the hell's that?"

He grumbled deep in his throat, obviously not completely sure. "It's a piece of fabric that supposedly comes from the underworld. No one's sure about it's origins, but it's been proven to contain a high amount of spiritual energy. If a dusclops stays around it for long enough, it evolves into a dusknoir sooner."

I'd never heard of such a thing. My knowledge was only that pokémon would evolve after a certain amount of time and experience. Not once had I ever heard of cloths or whatnot that could speed up evolution. Maybe they weren't around in my time. Then again, I remembered many sorts of quick-evolutions; growlithe into arcanine, rhydon into rhyperior... I'd always just assumed that people had been hunted down one old enough to evolve soon.

"Can't that be... detrimental to it?" I asked, eager to learn.

"Not if it's done over enough time," he told me. "When I got Ripper, he was already more than old enough to need it. But certain objects like that, or the specialist stones like water stones emit radiation waves that affect the pokémon. If you keep it somewhere close, yet still at a distance, like in your bag, then it can slowly change the pokémon without it having to wait an extra few years." He stopped speaking for a moment, and only the sounds of Irenui's wings beating and the air chopping past our ears kept me company. He was trying to search for an analogy good enough to explain it. "It's like someone having liposuction as opposed to losing weight naturally. If you go for the short option, you're not completely prepared for the change, so you'll take a while to adjust, and you'll still be eating the same way you always did. On the other hand, if you go the long route, your body is prepared for the change long before it happens, so even once you lose the weight, you're sticking to the same regime."

I considered it for a moment. "So it _is_ detrimental."

He laughed. "Yes and no. Either way, you end up with the same or similar results. Usually by evolving them too quickly the new form misses out on something they would have learnt naturally by taking the slow way, like the age old one of a raichu evolving too soon; it loses a lot of the speed it would have had if it evolved slowly."

"Lose competency in one area to speed up the whole process," I realised. It made sense, in a way. People were always obsessed with power, and the sooner they could get it, the better. Why wait over ten years for your pokémon to evolve when you can make it do so in a few months, all at the cost of a little speed or strength.

He nodded. "Though, there's such a thing as overdoing it. The pokémon only needs to be _near_ the source of radiation. If say you took a water stone and say, smacked an eevee with it, there would be too much radiation for the pokémon to handle. It would evolve within a day, maybe the week at most. Best case scenario; it still has a few eevee traits, like speed or strength. Worst case scenario; the pokémon can't adjust at all, and either drowns instead of breathing under water, can't use any abilities or dies from the shock."

That was a much heavier result than I first would have thought. "So with every worst case scenario, the result is death?"

Adryan made a movement somewhere between a nod and a shrug. "Pretty much. So unless you keep a water stone handy in your backpack, you're unlikely to see Xander evolve into a lombre and then a ludicolo before you're thirty."

Well, that completely put a spanner in the works. I needed my pokémon to reach their final evolutionary forms to maximise their potential. If they couldn't hit that, then my weapons weren't performing at best.

Though, I'd heard about pokémon that remained in one form and trained hard and often enough to surpass the potential they'd be expected to have in their next form. Maybe it wasn't all bad. If I could train Xander enough, he might be able to be a stronger lombre than a ludicolo.

In the middle of my thoughts, I felt Adryan try to turn round. "We're gonna start descending," he informed me. "Hold on tight."

That was all the warning I got. Not moment later Irenui dove down, and I'm sure I left my stomach up with the clouds. It took all my self control not to shriek in fear as we dropped hard towards the ground. Instead I gripped Adryan's waist hard enough to make him yelp in pain.

"Sorry," I mumbled. He made no big deal out of it, and instead focused more on getting Irenui to land. As much as I enjoyed flying, landing was another story completely. The dragoness landed with enough force to make my teeth wobble within my jaw, and I'm sure it led to later dental work.

Adryan cooed and rubbed her neck as she stood on solid ground, beating her wings forcefully in the night. I saw flickers of sand grains spinning around us both, and realised then and there that flygon truly could kick up sandstorms anywhere. It was no wonder why people didn't want to let trainers have them run wild in towns.

He unbuckled himself from the saddle and fell out gracefully, though my attempts were more of an unbuckle-then-fall-out-backwards on the floor with all the grace of a one-legged tauros.

I leapt to my feet as quick as I could, hoping that Adryan hadn't seen my lack of finesse. Of course, with my luck, he'd caught the whole thing as was busy laughing a happy tune at my general idiocy. I grumbled to myself and resisted the urge to set Loki on him. It might have made me feel better, but it wouldn't have helped me resolve the creature's manic behaviour.

"C'mon," he ushered me forwards into the town as he recalled his dragon in a beam of light. "We'll see if there's a room going in an inn or the centre."

I threw him a look as we walked down the streets, him guiding me as if on autopilot. "Don't you come from Rustboro?"

He waved his hand in a circling motion. "Yeah, but it's not all that polite, you know? I can't just arrive home at-" he glanced at his watch, "-nearly one in the morning and just be like 'hi mum! Just popped in for the night, you don't mind giving up a room to random stranger I happen to know?'"

I rolled my eyes and conceded the point. It probably wasn't the best idea to turn up at oh-one hundred hours in the morning and demand a room in someone's house. I'd earned enough money from the trainer battle to pay for my share of the room, it just meant that I'd have to earn enough for the remainder of my stay. I hoped it wouldn't be long, giving me enough chance to move on into the world and complete my goal.

Though with the way the world constantly threw me curve balls, I started to wonder if it actually wanted me to save it or not.


	13. City Life

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**City Life**

**

* * *

**_Failure to prepare is preparing to fail _~ John Wooden

**-O-O-O-**

_"The concept of a pokemon gym is nearly as old as the practice of training and battling the creatures. In ancient civilisations, when pokemon were captured with mystical, religious objects, the leader of their communities had the strongest pokemon out of everyone, and was also the worshipped religious figure, rather like modern day priests. It was said that they were chosen by the gods for their ability to capture, train and command the creatures, and that you could secure a wonderful existence in the afterlife if you managed to defeat the leader's pokemon in a battle._

_Neighbouring communities would often try to take over other settlements by the use of pokemon battles. Their strongest warriors would challenge the leader of the town, on the terms that if they won, it became a part of their territory, whereas if the leader won, they would retreat and leave their settlement unharmed. Of course, it rarely worked out that they kept to their word._

_The one figurehead of power soon become a widespread concept. They would build special temples in which to worship and to conduct pokemon battles. Eventually young pokemon owners decided to challenge the leaders of each town, if only to prove their strength, rather than take over another settlement. It was said that the first person who managed to defeat every leader within a country became known as the gods' champion - from where our modern day coining is said to come from._

_Eventually, the religious practices bcame abandoned, and people began to realise the fun in the sport of pokemon battling. The concept of having a leader and a specialist location to battle in, however, survived the passage of time. In the modern day, we still refer to them as a 'leader', though now they must prove their abilities by gathering at least fifty badges and passing written exams on legal concepts. While they may no longer be worshipped as a person chosen by the gods, it can be said that some children still regard the gym leaders with adoration comparible to holy worship._

_It really does prove that for as much as we have developed and evolved, our ancient practices still stay with us, to this very day."_

- Doctor Seymour Rush, Civilisation History PHD. _(Exert from an interview to 'History Today' regarding the origins of pokemon gyms. March 23rd, 3011)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The distinct loud noises of a city woke me up the next morning. I'd never actually experienced life in a city before, and wasn't expecting anywhere to be as crowded as what I saw in Rustboro. It was quiet and dead everywhere the night before, and I expected the morning after to be much the same.

How wrong I was.

The outside streets were filled with commotion as early as oh-six hundred hours. It woke me up instantly, and I'm damned near started to prepare for a quick evacuation of the premises. I'd never heard or seen so many people anywhere before; in my time, even half as many people in one place moving around at such speeds was cause for alarm.

I found myself watching people move around from my window for a good hour, at least. It amazed me to see people walking along in suits and smart dress, all with phones pressed to their ears. It was like watching a colony of ants; they moved in perfect unison around each other, waiting for cars to stop moving so the pedestrians could cross the roads, and then vice versa.

Even in the time it took me to have a shower and get dressed, it seemed the commotion still hadn't died down. I found myself just watching them, imagining and dreading having to be out there in amongst it all. I couldn't see a single pokémon in amidst the chaos, and I found myself equally as amazed as fleets of people dressed in both casual and smart clothes began to flock to the streets, spending as much time as they could in each shop, purchasing trivial clothes and new-range items.

It was amazing to see what the world was like before the destruction hit it. I wondered how these people would react if they knew in less than a decade they'd be plagued by disease and war, and the money they worked so long and hard for would be near enough worthless.

I think as I watched that, I first started to wonder if my life was so bad in some regards after all. Every in my time had learnt to survive by their own means, rather than relying on some company producing everything for them. The life I could see below me just seemed too... luxurious. It was too simple to be true, and it seemed like these people could live and die without ever learning anything that was actually important in their lives. I had a feeling less than a tenth of them would know how to mask their trail from predator pokémon in the wilderness, and even less would know how to actually kill and skin a pokémon, as well as knowing what parts of it could actually be eaten.

It was all well and good to advance so far in technology to have machines do everything for us, yet at the same time, people needed to know how to do the same things without the use of technology. I had to wonder how many people had died within the first year of the war simply because they had no idea how to live without having a machine or another person doing everything for them.

Below I could spot at least twenty people at a time that looked like they spent their days buying ready-prepared foods for breakfast and lunch, and then would dine in a restaurant for dinner. The amount of people that had obviously never made a meal in their lives truly surprised me.

It really was a completely different world.

I turned away from the window to see Adryan staring at me, one eyebrow over the over. He ruffled his hair with one hand and left it a veritable bird's nest. It made me imagine a small starly poking its head out of his hair, which left me trying to stifle a laugh as I looked back at him.

He still maintained his facial expression as he said, "You're not used to busy places, are you?"

I shook my head. "Oldale was a busy place compared to what I'm used to." At least I wasn't lying about that. I'm certain it was around then I started to truly wonder how many lies I'd told in the first few weeks of my journey, and how I'd eve manage to keep up with them all. No doubt I was going to run into a wall I'd erected with my lies and find myself blocked in on all sides.

"I'm just not used to seeing so many people in one place," I continued, my gaze refocusing to the window. "It's... mad."

He got out of bed and stood nearby me, leaning forwards enough to look out of the window. I turned round slightly and winced at the morning breath that assaulted my nose. Thankfully he missed it as he stared outside, and I found myself attempting to pretend I couldn't notice it, if only for the sake of being nice.

He eventually laughed and pushed himself away from the window. "Dude, that's just the work rush. You should see how packed the buses and trains get about this time in the morning."

I blinked and stared outside, trying to imagine buses and trains traversing in amidst the chaos. "How far away do they take them all to? I didn't realise Rustboro had a large network of trains."

He chuckled in amazement. "You really don't know much about Rustboro, do you?" he asked rhetorically. "The buses travel to all ten districts of Rustboro, and the trains run through the whole east of Hoenn, connecting Rustboro to Fallabour as well as Petalburg."

I'm pretty sure I was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. "Rustboro... has _ten_ districts?"

He nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Rustboro's one of the largest cities in Hoenn, you know? Only the capital, Lilycove is bigger. There's just under one million people living here."

I nearly fainted from shock. One _million_ people? It was more than _twenty_ times the amount of people living in the whole _world_ in my time! My head started to spin at the thought of so many people living in one city. "Just... how big is Rustboro?"

He shrugged and seemed to try to make calculations on his fingers. Eventually he gave up with that and began to draw a rough outline of the city in the air. "About a hundred square miles."

I swayed on the spot. How the hell was I to navigate my way around the country if every town was large enough to fit a school of wailord in? I voiced such thoughts to Adryan, and succeeded in making him laugh again. He explained that most trainer-related areas, such as gyms and pokémon centres were always in the dead centres of the towns or cities, or close to the ports. Apparently most trainer locations weren't much bigger than five square miles. It was still large enough to make my eyes roll around uncertainly in my head.

He smiled and ruffled my hair, much to my annoyance. I batted his hand away and only succeeded in broadening his smile. He told me he was going to get a shower, and when he was ready, he'd show me to the gym.

I didn't say it then, nor did I for a long time, but it reassured me a lot. The thought of being alone in such a large city was actually a lot more frightening that I ever would have thought.

* * *

Adryan was ready only a little while later. Along the way he pointed out various buildings to me. Most weren't all that important to me, like a local bus station, or a place where a random celebrity had grown up. The most interesting was probably the Devon Corp. building, which stretched out over all the other buildings, yet looked as if it had been made well over a century before the others.

It made me realise that all the buildings in Rustboro were similar in design; they all held the same brick-finished styling and were all a bland colour of grey, brown or a dull white. It seemed very much like an archaic town brought into modern times with only the vehicles and new shops that decorated some streets.

I also noticed that the city was also on the seaside. It made me remember the smells of ocean air from the night before, though I had been too tired whilst we were flying to identify it totally. The mountains loomed off in the distance, though the fact they were grey and shrouded by masses of fog in the distance made them somehow feel like part of the city.

When we finally reached the gym, I felt for certain that there was no way I would have been able to miss it were I actually on my own. It was about half the size of a football stadium and was in the shape of a large dome. It, like the rest of the town, was decorated in pale brown bricks, though there were a few small rock gardens that led up to the entrance. Above two large sliding glass doors was the word 'GYM' emblazoned with bright neon red light.

Adryan caught me gawping and shoved me forwards slightly. "The gym isn't going to move around _you_, ya know?" He smirked and walked towards the doors almost arrogantly. "You have to go inside to meet the gym leader."

I blinked and stood there for a numb moment. I had never actually said that I wanted to challenge the gyms, had I? I gathered that he'd assumed I was going to start challenging them, seeing as I'd mentioned challenging contests sounded like a lot of work. My decision was being made for me, it seemed.

Though, I couldn't complain.

If I could beat and gain the respect of the gym leaders; people recognised as powerful by the entirety of the country, I was certain that when I needed to alter events to save the world, I could get them to help me.

The lights were on inside and I could see trainers walking around with various species of rock pokémon. At least that narrowed down the options of what the gym leader would specialise in.

We walked through the sliding glass doors and I found myself basking within the cool breeze of the air conditioner within. The entire inside of the gym smelt of fresh gravel and mud, all a refreshing change from the humid outside air.

I snapped myself out of it and decided I had to find someone in charge around here. I gathered that the gym leader himself would be the one completely in charge, but I assumed that like the lab in Littleroot, there would be a receptionist around somewhere. Instantly I caught sight of a woman dressed smartly, and assumed that she worked here. She wore a slim black waistcoat over a white shirt with baggy sleeves, and a black skirt over black tights, and had on a pair of black boots whose heels clacked over the stone floors with every step she took.

I jumped a few steps in front of her path and smiled. "Hi, I'm here to challenge the gym leader here." I stopped and scratched my head. "Is, um, there someone I can talk to about that?"

She smiled and stopped before me. She had brown hair that was pulled out of her face and held behind her head with a large pink bow, though her hair split into two long tails either side of her head. Her eyes were brown, though seemed almost red in the light, and I noticed dirt and mud covering her clothes. "Well, you're speaking to the perfect person," she related to me in a cool calm voice. "I'm Roxanne, the gym leader here."

She held a hand out towards me, and I introduced myself as I shook her hand. I winced slightly at her grip; it felt like she was near-enough crushing my hand then and there.

She nodded and I noticed her eyes trail over me a moment. "You don't have that many scars on you," she stated, and pressed a hand onto her hip. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this is your first badge challenge?"

I stuttered, impressed by her deduction skills. "Is it that obvious?"

She smiled and flicked her hair behind her shoulders. "In most cases, yes. You can usually tell by age alone. Older trainers such as yourself usually carry a few scars when they've been training a while. Though if I had to go by your eyes-" she stared into my own for a moment, and I felt them watering as I struggled to keep them open for her like she was a medical professional. "You'd have made me guess you're an experienced trainer," she said, sounding confused. "Are you sure you haven't challenged any gyms before? Are you just simply starting afresh in Hoenn?"

Adryan walked up beside us and chuckled, arms folded across his chest. "I've asked him this a number of times. Trust me; the amount he's clueless to, he's still a newbie."

I scowled and bit the inside of my lip. "Do forgive me, grandmaster of all knowledge." I looked at him and smirked. "Please do tell me again; how do you hide your scent from a predator with advanced nasal senses?"

His mouth dropped open ever so slightly as his cheeks both turned a light shade of pink. Roxanne however, simply stood there and laughed at our antics. "Very well, everyone starts at different times." She swept a loose strand of hair from her face. "If I recall, the Elite Four member Drake didn't start his own journey until he was well into his thirties." She shrugged to herself and walked towards a wooden door near us. She motioned for us to follow her as she opened the door to the office.

All around were various pieces of paper, as well as one large-screened computer that took up most of the room. Unlike Birch's though, her office was pristine, and each stack of paper seemed to be lined up so that not a single edge was overlapping another.

She quickly sat down on the desk and pulled open one of the drawers. From within she grabbed a pen and a small stack of papers. "Today's the sixteenth..." she was whispering, more to herself than anyone. "Sunday's my day off... How about Monday at eleven-fifteen?" she asked me. "Three days from now, so it should give you enough time to train up for it."

I chewed my bottom lip. On the one hand, I'd been hoping to get the battle out of the way to make sure I could move on somewhere else in Hoenn as quickly as I could. Waiting around three days was a complete hampering to my plans. On the other hand though, it _did_ give me enough time to train to make sure I didn't have to battle her again.

In the end, I decided it was my best option. "I'll take it."

"Great!" She beamed and quickly clicked a button on the pc mouse. The computer flared into life seconds later and she typed in everything as quickly as she could. Her fingers were a blur over the keyboard, and by the time I'd registered she'd stopped, she had already printed off a small slip. She ripped it out of the printer and scribbled her signature on it. "Here you go," she said, ripping off one half and handing it to me. "Like most gyms, we're offering all challenging trainers a free stay at the pokémon centre on their first attempt until the day of their match." She winked. "Lose, and I'm afraid you're going to have to pay normal price again."

I thanked her and pocketed the slip. "Pity I didn't do that before last night. I could have saved myself a night's fees."

She smiled. "Ah, I remember those days. Travelling round with nothing more than a few notes to your name." She sighed whimsically. "I do miss them sometimes."

Adryan chuckled. "Yeah, I'm gonna use that as my excuse next time someone asks what I plan to do with my life: travel for as long as possible with only a few poké to my name." He placed his hands behind his head. "No tax, no job, no limits... no worries."

Speak for yourself.

Roxanne smiled at him. A moment later she was squinting, evaluating his appearance and demeanour. "Do I... do I know you from somewhere?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Doubt it; I haven't been in Rustboro all that often since I finished basic school and left to be a trainer."

She gasped and snapped her fingers. "That's where I know you from!" she exclaimed. "You were a year below me! I remember, you had these big framed glasses-" she framed her eyes with her fingers and I couldn't help but laugh. "And you were pretty short too." She laughed as he turned a shade of pink. "What have you been doing since you left to be a trainer?"

He scratched at a day's worth of stubble. "Travelling really. Same old trainer nonsense. I've got the full set of twenty from each of the four main regions now though."

She made an impressed noise as they continued their discussions of their journeys. Apparently she had travelled round Hoenn first for two years too, then onto Sinnoh and Kanto both for another two years. After that she enrolled in a trainer education school in Johto, and passed her exams there and did her leader apprenticeship in Hoenn.

It was all way over my head.

Half an hour later they finished their conversation and Roxanne led us both out of the gym, pointedly reminding me not to forget our gym battle in a few days. I told her I wouldn't and quickly began scouting for the signs that would point me round town.

Adryan seemed to catch what I was doing and was quick to point out a few things to me. He showed me the direction of the pokémon centre we'd come from, as well as the local trainer shops. He then pointed out the roads that would lead to a few training areas outside of town, and made sure to drill it into me that if I took the one leading to Verdanturf I would bump into most of the gym's apprentices and trainers. It meant I'd get some practice in fighting against rock pokémon and learn their strengths and weaknesses.

The fear of being left alone in such a large city crept up on me again. "Where abouts are you going then?" I asked him.

He grinned and popped his neck, though I caught sight that he seemed to be the slightest bit apprehensive about something. "Gotta go and see my folks. I haven't been back home in a while, after all," he said, keeping calm. "So gotta pop in and let 'em know how I'm doing, what's going on in my life, let 'em know the things that are going on in my life. That old sorta thing."

I nodded, though I didn't actually want him to go. He told me he'd meet me back at the pokémon centre later on in the evening, and that getting around on my own was good practice for when I'd be on my own. I accepted the point and watched as he walked off into the busy streets, and near enough disappeared into the crowds.

Instantly fear blossomed through me. I bunched my hands into fists, fearful of all the people being so close to me and bumping into everyone and anyone. I made way in the direction that Adryan pointed out to me, knowing that I not only had to train myself, but my pokémon too for the upcoming battles.

* * *

When I reached the route Adryan had pointed out to me, I was completely surprised by it. Given that he'd told me it was where the rock type trainers trained, I expected it to be a large clearing better suited to their needs. Instead it was a veritable spring path, filled with trees, a number of ponds and a large amount of plants decorating the scenery.

I let out Xander instantly, and with a happy croak he made way over to one of the nearby ponds and floated along the surface. I sat down and watched him, though pulled out a book and my pokédex, and began cross-comparing the two. I needed to know how I could deal with Loki, and I needed to do it fast. Adryan said he'd managed to resolve his duskull with time and effort, though I didn't have the former.

The only thing I could think of was to find out a sableye's weak points and exploit them with Loki. If I could manage to grip him in such a way he couldn't attack me, or cause him enough pain to make him stop, it would help me in some way. If he was going to be violent, I'd treat him in kind. Pokémon learnt in a number of ways, and would learn quickly through pain that something wasn't to be done. If I hit him and told him off every time he tried to attack, he'd surely get the message of what was and was not to be done.

I managed to do it for almost an hour before people started to really show up. I packed my stuff away and supposed that I could truly try and sort out my problems with my pokémon another time. I'd gone to the specific location to train, and made sure I trained as much as possible.

I quickly found out how vastly trainers varied by expertise.

I got into a number of battles that day, and started off with Xander against a geodude. He managed to defeat the pokémon without much effort, and I congratulated him eagerly. Once or twice they were close calls, and Xander lost a few battles too. I quickly realised that he could heal himself when exposed to large amounts of sunlight, so in between battles I made him rest in the pond with ample sunlight beating down on him. It would take up to an hour for his injuries to heal over, and although it wasn't as good as treatment from a pokémon centre, I knew it would help his immune system and body's natural recovery better.

At one point we were completely demolished by a trainer, despite Xander having a huge advantage. The trainer sent out a corsola, and I knew that Xander could take it down easily, given the chance.

Although, we didn't much get that. Before Xander had even croaked an affirmation, the corsola shot multiple spikes into his flank and knocked him out instantly. I quickly realised that I would have to soon work on his defence as well as his offence.

Though I also found out he didn't seem to like following my orders. Every time I pointed out a weakness in the opposing pokémon, he seemed reluctant to follow it. I knew a geodude could be crippled by hitting the base of its arms; a powerful enough attack with a water base could sever the arm completely from its body. Even though a geodude could repair the arm by collecting rocks back up and reforming the limb, he wouldn't complete the order. It seemed he knew I knew it would cripple the opponent, and was saving such attacks for other situations.

He was an honourable little lotad.

Which frustrated me completely. I needed a pokémon that wouldn't hesitate to follow my orders. If the opposing pokémon were to be gravely injured, it didn't matter; in the wilds, every battle was life or death. Pokémon could still die in trainer battles, yet it seemed some pokémon had enough personality of their own to refuse such a thing.

It took me a long time to understand and truly appreciate the difference between them all. But being so focused on rushing everything, I completely overlooked such qualities and instead focused on negatives. He wasn't obeying my every order, and I still had so much left to teach him. He was beginning to understand what I meant when I told him to blast opponents with water, and I could see it slowly getting stronger. His sunlight-based healing was still poor at best, he still couldn't completely heal in less than an hour. I tried to get him to use it in battle, but instead he looked completely confused and then was crushed by the full weight of a bonsly.

It was the first time I'd needed to check into a pokémon centre for problems relating to my pokémon, and it was eerie to be left without them on my person. The nurse had checked their trainer identification number with me, and I'd completely blanked out when she said it. It took me a while to have it explained to me, though she simplified it by telling me it was the first letter of my first and last name, coupled with the year of my birth and the year I became a trainer.

Pity the former was a lie, and the latter actually occurred _before_ I was meant to be born. Just thinking about it gave me a headache.

And a nosebleed.

When I handed Xander over I decided to get Loki checked out as well – though I did warn the nurse taking them he'd gone a bit crazy. She'd asked why, and when she heard what had happened, to my surprise, she completely understood, and just left a small note attached to his record on the computer. She told me that even gym leaders and the Elite Four would struggle to get a pokémon past such cravings; 'blood thirst' as she called it. Apparently, although most pokémon hunted for food, ghost and dark pokémon could develop an addiction to causing pain. She told me that aside from humans, they were the only creatures that would kill for fun, and it took a strong trainer to help them fully get past and beat the cravings.

I sunk into a chair in the lounge. I was screwed.

I managed to phone both professor Birch and Jennifer from my phone in the mean time. Birch had delighted in hearing I'd managed to get to Rustboro and avoided all the trouble in Petalburg, and had been completely sympathetic towards my plight with Loki. He told me much the same as the nurse did, though he rounded it off by telling me he had the greatest confidence I'd be able to handle it.

Jennifer on the other hand seemed to be completely amazed I'd captured a sableye and not been eaten by it. She expressed that she'd known a few people that had gone off in search of the creatures and eventually been driven mad by the tricks they laid out. I thought back to how he'd managed to steal Xander's poké ball off me and made the poor attempt of follow-the-money as a trap. Then again, he was only young, so most likely didn't completely know what he was doing. She told me that once I got to Dewford I should go and traverse their local cave systems – apparently sableye were native to the caves, and I could learn a lot from observing the wild ones within. She effectively brought a downer on the conversation when she said that if I made good enough time I'd be able to see her again before she passed on. Although I knew she was only trying to cheer me up, it made me start to realise what she'd sacrificed for my trip. I began to wonder then and there if there would be any more people I'd meet who would end up dying to help me progress.

I banished the thought quickly. I couldn't think such things.

While I waited for my pokémon to be healed – the nurse had told me it would be an overnight job, at least – I went to the gym in the centre. I was actually quite amazed it had one, but one of the workers there told me that every centre had something that could be used to help a trainer whilst their pokémon were healed. Every one of them had the usual magazine racks and books, though apparently the other 'attractions' varied by location. He said there were sparring rings and martial arts instructors in the Dewford pokémon centre, as well as swimming pools in Slateport.

I was amazed. They really did go all out to make sure trainers were treated well. Though, many trainers didn't treat themselves well, much like myself. I was used to pushing myself far beyond my limits, and as I hadn't actually exercised properly in the whole time I'd been in the new world, I pushed myself as hard as I could in the gym. Sure I'd done press-ups and sit-ups as often as I could, but it wasn't the gruelling work out I'd grown up with and actually became used to.

In the end, I was exhausted, my muscles were dead and I was about to pass out on the treadmill when one of the attendants decided to bar me from the gym for the rest of the day. It was that bad he actually picked me up and threw me over his shoulder to evict me, and I was that exhausted I couldn't do anything about it.

It didn't help that he was built like a machamp, either.

I ended up glaring in his general direction from the lobby for a good five minutes. When I finally turned round, I caught sight of Adryan walking into the centre, looking haggard and upset. It took me a moment to realise it was him, and I was completely shocked when I saw him.

"Dude, what happened?" I asked him, near enough shaking his arms. He was sporting a fresh black eye and a split lip, and looked both defeated and upset.

"S'nothing," he grunted, adjusting his scarf around himself. I stood there a moment, not letting him move past me until I got a decent enough answer. "S'nothing," he repeated.

I held my hand up and refused to let him past. "Ayd, what the hell happened?"

He smirked instantly. "You realise you just called me 'Ayd' right? I'm growing on ya!"

I growled. "Stop changing the subject. If it's that bad, we'll go back and sort them out together, and you can set your pokémon on 'em if it's freaked you out that much."

"It's not that," he growled, mustering dark, exhausted venom in his voice. I stood my ground and waited until he sighed and pressed a hand to his face. "It was my mother, _alright?"_

That startled me completely. All I managed was a confused, "Eh?"

He groaned and pressed his hand further into his face. "Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay? I just wanna go upstairs, go to sleep and pretend today hasn't happened." He stopped and looked at me from behind his hand. I must have looked a mess: completely soaked in sweat and still panting and sweating both from exhaustion. "And you need a shower. You _smell_."

I couldn't muster enough energy to argue with him, nor think of a witty remark. "Uh, yeah," I grunted even as he pushed past me. It didn't make any sense to me. In my mind, mothers were matriarchal figures and would go to any lengths to protect their children, not _hurt_ them.

Then again, I didn't have much to compare against it. I never knew my mother, and all the mothers I'd known in my time were adjusted to our war-torn times.

Perhaps this new world was just even stranger than I had ever thought.


	14. Behind the Laughter

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**Behind the Laughter**

**

* * *

**

_You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough _~ Frank Crane

**-O-O-O-**

_"The reason why reality television shows have dwindled in popularity so much is because of one simple fact; everyone has a sob story. No matter what show it is, be it a singing competition, a dancing competition or a cooking competition, people seem to think they can only win if they have a story that makes people love them and feel sorrow for them._

_Now call me cold-hearted, but I really don't think the fact that when your pet cat died, you found it on your dancing shoes and decided it was a sign in anyway affects your dancing abilities. People have real, decent reasons behind them, such as singers who come on after finding the papers to register in a relative's will, but they don't let that rule their personality. They only mention it when they're pressed, and even then it's only a passing mention, and then they try to act like everything is normal._

_But the matter of fact is, all of their sob stories pale in comparison to anything a trainer can tell you. The people that go onto these talent shows have never experienced the real world. Look at the kids who come back from their trainer journies - whether they're ten or twenty, they all share the same common look of haunted experience. When you're a trainer, you seem some real shit on the road. You go out, capture and bond with pokemon, and then can end up watching their guts removed before your very eyes. You meet people who make you smile and laugh, and then their face gets torn off by an angry ursaring._

_The point is, pokemon trainers have seen it all. They deal with death, doom, despair and fear on a daily basis. But you know what? They use it to build their characters. Some can't take it and drop out when they can, opting to go for a normal life away from pokemon. The trainers that continue will use their experiences to further their own personalities, and they're all cut from the same cloth, so to speak. You're never going to meet a trainer who's going to spill a sob story to you after meeting you for thirty seconds. Every trainer keeps it bottled up, and they'll only reveal it to someone they trust enough, and only when they're continually pressed._

_Which brings me back to the main point. Reality television viewings have dropped so much because a large portion of the viewers were, at one time, a pokemon trainer. No doubt they sit down to watch it for entertainment value, only to end up being pissed off when someone comes on, claiming that they've got the worst life ever because someone they know died, and they found out by the phone. Trainers have seen people killed before their very eyes - they're not going to give a rattata's ass about those sort of people. They're going to find something else to watch and so the viewer figures drop._

_The main thing I want to say is; everyone has a sob story. The only thing is, you only ever hear one side of the story."_

- Tom Rogers, Rustboro News Network. _(Comment in regard to the dwindling popularity of reality television shows. __September 22nd, 3009)  
_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The next morning, I woke up with my goal already in mind; to begin sorting out Loki. I made quick time with all the mundane, every-morning tasks before I set out, making sure I left Adryan a note explaining my absence. The sun was just beginning to streak across the skyline, and it brought a brilliant refreshing taste to the air. It seemed like it was going to be a good day.

I just hoped it would continue in such a way.

I managed to get outside of the city's limits within record time. Birds and bees were chirping and buzzing within the thickets, and I saw a few ledyba and kricketot flying and jumping around within the undergrowth. They were a distraction, and I needed to make sure Loki didn't chase after them too.

I made my move before I could regret it. I released Loki in a flash of light, and instantly his ears fell back flat against his head as he hissed at me. His claws were raised in the air, and a deep, guttural growl was building in the back of his throat.

I made my move as quickly as I could. I leapt at him and picked him up by the scruff of his neck, earning myself only a few scratches and cuts in the process. He hissed more and attempted to slash my throat open before I squeezed one of the gems on his back. He shrieked in pain and thrashed even more, though quickly became submissive as I hissed a command for him to stop.

"You're going to listen to me Loki," I growled to him, keeping my voice deep and threatening. "I don't have time to fuck around and deal with you wanting to rip things to pieces. I need to go out and save this world before it becomes the shithole I grew up in. But to do it, I'll need your help." I started to loosen my grip on his back gems, going slowly enough so that he didn't suddenly attack. "I don't care that you want to maul everything you come across. I don't care that you want to sink your teeth into flesh all the time." I turned him round to face me, aware that I was leaving myself out in the open. My hand was completely away from the gems that sprouted over his body, though I kept my grip on his neck hard. He seemed completely submissive at the moment, and I thanked my lucky stars he was young enough for this to work.

"I just need you to help me," I told him, cursing the words for making me sound weak. "Follow my commands; I'll point out the best ways for you to take out any trainer pokémon. In return, I'll let you hunt whatever you want, and _do_ whatever you want as long as you follow my command."

He stared at me for a moment, expression blank. With my free hand I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few large pebbles. Loki instantly stiffened and sniffed at the air. He stared at them with ravenous hunger, and I lifted my hand closer to his face. When he reached for them, I snatched my hand away. "I want to know you're on side," I told him. I offered my hand again. "Work with me, and I'll treat you." I closed it and snatched it away again. "Carry on the same way, and you're going to be in pain again," I told him, moving towards the glistening emerald gems threateningly.

He seemed to consider everything a moment. He lifted his arms tentatively and reached for my hand again, clawing slowly at the air. I held the rocks out he nodded eagerly, making a number of excited, raspy noises. I placed him down on the floor and held the rocks out. "Work with me?"

He jumped up excitedly and leapt like a child at my waiting hand. I took the fact that he wasn't attacking me as a good sign and stretched my hand out to him. He leapt up and grabbed my hand, greedily eating the offered treats. Afterwards he looked up at me with big, wide eyes and considered me a moment. As soon as I saw his ears flick back threateningly again I raised my hand. He flinched and considered his attack for a moment before deciding against it. He relaxed, and I dropped my hand. Instead I reached out gently, and heedless of his wary growls, I pressed a hand to his head and rubbed it gently. He began to nearly purr as I rubbed the back of his ears, and I gathered that I'd managed to at least start working towards getting him back to my command.

As little as it was, it was still a step forwards.

* * *

When I got back to the room, I just bumped into Adryan as he was finishing getting ready. He looked surprised to see me back so soon, and even more surprised when I thrust some ice wrapped in cloth in his stomach.

"For your eye," I told him even as I walked passed and placed a small vial of pills on the counter. "And vitamin C for it too." He went to say something, though I cut him off quickly by telling him, "Gargle salt water for your lip."

He looked somewhere between amazed, impressed and blind as he pressed the ice to his injured eye. "Just _how_ do you know all this?" he asked even as he squinted at me.

I offered a tentative smile. "I grew up with a lot of time spend in training drills and a long way away from a medic. You just learn how to deal with most injuries in the field."

He hissed as he pressed the ice further into his eye. "How often are there black eyes and split lips in the field in army training?"

I laughed. "A lot more than you'd think. When you've got about twenty guys and a dozen women all stuck with each other twenty-four-seven, there ends up being quite a number of fights that break out."

He nodded and looked amused by my story. "So you manage to get a start with Loki then?"

I thought back to my treatment of the ghost. No doubt he'd disapprove of my methods, but I needed results fast. As long as it worked, I didn't see much of a problem with it. "I think I'm starting to get some progress," I told him, as honestly as I could. "But it's gonna be a while." He nodded and sat back down on his bed, though quickly tightened his scarf before placing the ice once again to his face. "So... what happened yesterday then?" I noticed him tense and quickly opted to tread as carefully as I could. "You looked upset Ayd. You try to get me to share my problems as much as I can with you, I'm not exactly a good friend if I don't do the same back to you."

He looked at me and bore a snarl that was coated in honeyed venom. "Except you don't actually share anything all that true with me, do you?" he hissed. I stood rigid and thought the urge to gulp. Surely he hadn't figured out almost everything I'd said was a lie? I knew it was going to happen sooner or later; I just wanted it to be later.

Like five years-from-that-moment later.

He sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he apologised instantly. "Look, I'm not used to chatting to people that have been in the army, or anything of the like. I know there's going to be stuff that you're not allowed to mention to anyone else, it just irks me when people lie to me, even if they're doing it for my own protection or the like." He removed the ice and blinked rapidly, adjusting his vision once more. "My mother and I had a falling out."

Well, that much was obvious. I grabbed his hand and made him press the ice back onto his eye, making sure he knew to keep it there until the swelling had gone down. I then sat down on the bed opposite him. "How?"

He laughed a dead, hollow laugh. "Just. Me and her don't exactly share the same sort of views, and she can't seem to see that I've developed my own opinions of the world."

I tilted my head curiously. People had fallings out over opinions, surely, but mother and son? It seemed unheard of. I voiced these thoughts to him, and he came out with another hollow, short laugh.

"She can't see past the haze that covers her eyes," he growled with surprising spite. "She was brought up with the old-Hoenn values-"

"Old-Hoenn?" I asked, cutting through his explanation. He looked at me and seemed slightly amused that there was yet another thing I didn't know.

He gave a one-armed shrug. "She grew up in the old parts of Rustboro where it's still a completely white community. Her mother drilled it into her, and I think now that gran's dead, she feels closer to her or something by using her ideals as her own." He scowled and shook his head. "Basically, those sort of beliefs are that you're not allowed to be attracted to, let alone date or get married to anyone that isn't the same race or religion to you. If they're a different race, different religion or the same gender, then you're not to touch it with a ten foot barge pole."

I stared for a moment. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't get past the block in my head. "How... exactly can you have that mentality?"

He laughed. "I know, right?" he asked, and shook his head. "Anyway, it all kicked off because when I was travelling round Sinnoh for the first time, there were three of us: me, another guy and a mixed race girl." He looked happy at the memories. "We had some great times, and they were some of the best friends I ever had. But mum's still sore I went travelling with them, and she's never let up that I spent two years travelling with... well, I really don't wanna go round repeating what she said."

I blinked. Then I blinked again. The mental block was back, and this time it was twice as strong. "But... that's ridiculous," I said, unable to help myself. "I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for other people, regardless of their race."

"_Exactly,"_ he emphasised once more. "Anyway, she started bringing all of that up, and the age-old parent belief that if you're travelling with someone of the opposite sex, you _must_ be at it like a couple of lopunny." I resisted the urge to ask if they were, in fact, doing exactly that. I got the feeling it wasn't exactly I time for humour.

"So I just told her a few home truths," he said with a defeated sigh. "And she was _not_ happy with what she heard, let me tell you." He laughed a hollow laugh again, and I wondered how much he was actually trying to hold everything together. It was blatantly obvious he was hurt by it all, and I caught sight of how bloodshot his free eye actually was. He must have been crying about it while I was gone, but I didn't bring the point up.

"She didn't like what she heard," he said gravely. "So she basically punched me in the face, _twice_, then up and kicked me out, swearing at me to never come back again."

I couldn't say anything for a moment. It was like all coherent thought had gone away and my brain was nothing more than an empty space with a lone tumbleweed bouncing through it. "No offence or nothing, but your mum's an ass."

He shook his head with a sad smile. "She's a bigot. She should get over it though. Hopefully."

I nodded and felt the need to cheer him up. Most prevalent on my mind was how happy he seemed about his travelling group in Sinnoh. "So who was this girl you had the fight about then?"

He smiled a happy-yet-sad smile and reached into his pocket. From within he pulled out his wallet and quickly pulled out a photo from its inside. He stared at it for a good, long moment before he handed it to me. I looked at it and made out three, happy smiling faces instantly. They all looked about sixteen, and at the oldest, looked my age. There was a boy with jet black hair that fell in a complete mess round his face, and he had blue eyes that looked like they were made of ice. Above him was a girl with near-caramel skin. Her face had a huge, wide grin on it, and she had black hair tied back from her face, though bright pink bangs framed it, and brown eyes stared at the camera. It took me a moment to recognise Adryan; I only gathered it was him by the glasses, though these were a pair of light, clear frames whose lenses took up most of the top of his face. Where I knew him to have brown hair, in the photo it was a bright blonde and a complete mess. There was even a leaf sticking out of it.

"That's Owen and Chris," he told me without moving towards the photo. "I met them when I was about fifteen, and we travelled together for nearly three years afterwards." He smiled and looked over at me. "And no, that's not my natural hair colour. This is-" he pointed to his uneven mop, which even then held the exact same messy style as in the photo – sans leaf. "Well, apart from the red tips," he allowed.

I smiled and stared at the picture. They all just seemed... so _happy_. It made me slightly jealous to stare at it. I began to realise there wasn't actually a moment in my life until then that I'd actually been as happy as the three I saw in the photo. I decided then that I had to make sure make sure I found some happiness in my journey.

I handed the picture back to him, pushing the jealousy down as far as it could go. "What happened?" I asked.

Instantly his face fell. "It was in Kanto," he said, voice devoid of any emotion. "We'd collected roughly sixty-five badges, and thought that between the three of us, we were more than able to survive Cerulean Cave." He looked like he wanted to cry at the memory. "My god, we were so _horribly_ wrong." He shuddered and wrapped an arm around himself. "The pokémon in there... they were _brutal_. We didn't realise how bad... how _powerful_ they could become. There's wild ditto that inhabit there – they're shapeshifters," he explained for my benefit. "Usually it takes ages for a ditto to become adept at transforming under a trainer's command. But these are on another level. They can become anything at _any_ time. We didn't realise it, but from the moment we stepped in, we were being hunted by them. They could pretend to be walls to block you in and even give the appearance of a broken floor. They effectively led us into a dead-end where they pounced." He shuddered once more and I felt the need to put my arm round him. Instead I sat next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked like he just might have buried his face in my neck and burst into tears had I put my arm completely round him.

"It was _horrible,"_ he breathed, shell-shocked. "Ditto... they don't eat normally. They're sorta like bugs, where they need to dissolve everything first before they eat. Except, they don't spit out stomach acid or anything of the like. Since they can become anything, they start to sweat acid over their victims. They... they managed to get Owen-" he suffered a bad spasm at the memory. "The moment they got him, there was nothing we could do. He just began to _melt_ then and there, screaming in pain, agony, all sorts." He sighed heavily. "Me and Chris, we knew there wasn't anything we could do. We turned tail and ran. We didn't know where we were going; it was too dark to see, and we were both blinded with tears. Somehow, by some miracle we managed to get back to the entrance, but then everything fucked up again.

"This parasect just appeared out of _nowhere_," he recounted. "The bastard thing threw out a load of spores, and we just managed to avoid getting caught in them. But they blocked the entrance, and if we stayed in, we'd have to continue to face it. So we did the only thing that made sense; we rushed for the entrance. We made it... but not completely." I looked at him curiously, though didn't have to ask before he provided the answer. "The parasect, that bastard attacked with _deadly_ speed. It cleaved off one of her arms with fuckin' deadly speed. She didn't even notice herself it was missing until we got outside. But it was too late then, and we weren't gonna run back in for it. We just passed out right outside the cave, then and there. Some of the champions that patrol it found us later, and we woke up in the hospital a day or two later."

He suddenly growled and punched the bed. "I got off completely unharmed! Chris lost an arm, and Owen _died_ in there! And I walked out without a scratch on me! I'd have gladly lost an arm if it meant keeping Owen alive!"

I knew how he felt. Survivor guilt was one of the worst things to have to deal with after something had happened. To see all your friends die and yet you carry on living... sometimes it was the hardest thing.

"Hey," I whispered to him, and gripped his shoulder tighter. "It's alright. It gets better with time. You can't blame yourself for surviving."

"What do you know?" he snapped. I should have expected that. I hadn't told him anything of my past, and for all he knew I could have just been trying to calm him down and make him feel better.

I told him what I could. "I grew up in and around the army. It's true like you said, there's stuff we see that we're not meant to share with other people. You think it's fun to watch your friends be hit by gunfire or blown to smithereens? You think I haven't wondered why, countless times, that I've survived yet the guy next to me has had his brains splattered on the wall behind him? You think I haven't watched people die as I've tried to patch them up?" I shook my head as the memories all plagued me once more. "I've seen kids, _kids_, reduced to nothing more than little chunks of flesh because they've angered a voltorb or the like. I've seen people stabbed in the gut by nidorino and then had to watch as their organs melted out of their bodies." I stopped a moment and looked him dead in the eye. "Do you know what happens with weedle when they're in mating season?" He shook his head. "They attack with their stingers, but the females use that to lay their eggs. The eggs get planted in a living victim, and it takes a week, sometimes less for the larva to hatch. Then they eat their way out of the victim.

"That's what I know," I told him with a heavy heart. "But you know what? You can carry on blaming yourself all your life for their death, living with survivor guilt. Or you can just pick yourself up and live your life, knowing that even if that's not what they wanted, it's stupid to throw away your chance."

He laughed bitterly and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Yeah, I suppose," he grunted and blinked away his remaining tears. "Sheesh-" he rolled his eyes, "-we're a right pair between us, aren't we?"

I smiled grimly. "Speak for yourself." We laughed a moment between ourselves, after effects of our sudden confessions of gruesome experiences. "Why would you want to go to Hoenn's equivalent after all that?" I asked him.

He looked at me, one eyebrow arched over the over. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked, and rubbed a hand through his hair. "I _need_ to conquer it. If I can go in there by myself and survive, it'll make me feel better about it." He met me dead in the eyes. "I mean, haven't you gathered it yet? All that shit that happened has made me shit-scared of caves. I mean, I needed you, who was no more than a random stranger, to come in there with me."

That came as a bit of a surprise, though less than I would have thought. I guess on some level I'd already assumed he was afraid. "So it's building yourself up?" I assumed. "Tackle a smaller cave with someone, and then run into a large network of horrible beasts on your own?"

He nodded then shook his head. "Something like that, though I _do_ need to train my pokémon. The best training I can give them are in harsh conditions like that."

I stared at him a moment. In his eyes, I could see a look I'd seen all too often with people suffering from survivor guilt; he'd given up to a degree. If he went in there and died from it, he wouldn't care. "I'm coming with you," I told him in nothing more than a growl. "I'm not going to let you suffer and endanger yourself on your own down there."

He shook his head, though had a smile on his face. "I'm not going to let you," he told me, convicted in his decision. "I don't want to risk another friend dying around me."

I stood there, numb and flustered for a moment. I wanted to call him out; to scream at him for wanting to let himself die in there, but I knew it wouldn't be the best case. I needed to make sure he knew he had to press on and survive. "But _I _don't want one of my friends dying alone in some horrible cesspit everyone avoids." Granted at that time, he was really my _only_ friend. But I didn't want to admit that to him, nor anyone else.

"I won't be alone," he promised me. "I've got my pokémon by my side." He caught my sceptical look and smiled once more. "Look, I took them out back in Oldale, because I knew this was something I had to do. I need to go in there, alone, and come out the other side with only my skills and my pokémon to thank for it. Otherwise, I'm gonna be living in fear the whole while." He placed his glasses back on his face and leapt to his feet. "Look, I'm gonna wait round town until you've had your gym battle, alright? After that, I'm going to fly over to Pacifidlog town and use the entrance near there. I shouldn't be gone more than a month, maybe two if I'm pushing it. When I come out, I'll ring you and let you know, and meet up with you where we can."

He was planning ahead. It was a good sign. At least I knew he wasn't completely planning on meeting his end within the network of horrors. "Fine," I said, albeit reluctantly.

He shoved me lightly on the shoulder. "Come on, cheer up! I'll be back annoying the hell outta you before you know it! Look-" he wrapped a hand around my shoulders and gestured outside the window. "We'll go around town today, do some sightseeing and get you training a bit more. You managed to get some done where I told you yesterday, right?"

I nodded, reflecting of my experiences the day past. I was sure I'd learnt a lot from it. I told him this, and he laughed once more, though I could tell that this one was born of amusement, for the first time in a while.

"You're always learning," he told me. "No matter what. Don't believe you know everything about your opponents, because they'll always have something that can surprise you. Tell ya what," he said and shook my body from the shoulders. "I'll even show you the pokémon I'm taking with me to the Origin Cluster, and let them train some of your pokémon."

I looked at him, confused and surprised. "But aren't your pokémon _leagues_ stronger than mine? I'm sure any of your pokémon could defeat mine with a _sneeze_."

He laughed. "Maybe so. But come on, let's go enjoy the town while we're still here," he said, and near enough manhandled me out of the room.

* * *

I have to say, travelling with Adryan really opened my eyes up to the new world. I saw so many people going about daily business, as well as the vast population of Rustboro. I saw people living and moving around as no more than guided ants, and none of them seemed bothered by the fact they were leading most likely mundane, run-of-the-mill lives.

I asked Adryan about it, and he told me that not everyone became a trainer. He said there were roughly four billion humans on the planet, and maybe ten times as many pokémon living on the planet. It wasn't feasible for everyone to become a trainer and for both populations to continue to flourish.

He went on to tell me that even though many kids started off journeying at the age of ten, many had quit and given up by the time they were fifteen. He said only twenty-three percent of trainers continued on with their journeys, while seventeen percent would die and the other sixty would quit and become something else. Most pokémon teachers were trainers that hadn't managed more than five years in the field – though people like doctors and nurses trained without ever truly wanting to be a trainer.

While we were in the main shopping districts, I picked up a jacket – much through Adryan's insistence. He told me there was a large desert that took up most of the region between Mauville and Fallabor, and that locations such as the Petalburg Woods would become deathly cold at night.

I wondered how long I'd have actually survived in the world without his help.

He pointed out a few basic things to me along the way, such as what shops sold the best clothes and equipment for travelling. I found myself amazed by it all. I'd travelled to the remains of Rustboro before – or 'Sector 23' as I knew it. While I was in there I'd found various remains of shops and trinkets that were sold in past times. It was amazing to see it all still alive and in existence.

We stopped at a weapons store and I managed to stop him from buying anything from within. Everything in there was ludicrously overpriced for what it was, and I was certain at least half of his stock would only last a month at best. I told Ayd that he needed a weapon that would be able to cleave a pokémon in two, not fail to even cut butter. It was strange to think about it; he made sure I was prepared for the elements of current Hoenn, and I made sure he was prepared enough for the dangers the world possessed.

We did make a good team.

He was amazed I knew so much about what body armours to wear, as well as what weapons would work best. I grinned at him and told him a life as a soldier wasn't exactly wasted in regards to practical applications. Though helping him out made me realise I needed armour and a good weapon of my own; I was actually amazed I'd managed to live so long in a world without any of them protecting me.

Ayd led me far enough away from the main town that the beach was instantly visible. There were a number of different sandy locations that were packed with tourists, though he led me further out, over a large amount of sharp, growing rocks and a good few hundred feet up some of the local mountain ranges. We ended up in a remote, sandy location that stretched on for a good half a mile, and the rocks enclosed it in a roughly oval shape. Small ponds decorated some parts of the environment, and I heard the distinct sounds of wild pokémon elsewhere within the location.

"Great, isn't it?" Adryan asked me with a wide grin on his face. "Quite a lot of people know about this place, though not all of them like coming up here; there's wild zangoose and seviper that live in and around this territory; unless you've got pokémon that can defend you, you can quite easily end up caught in the conflict."

I quickly thought about the two different species. I knew the best solution would be to cut one of them deep enough to let it bleed and leave them to attack each other. If they sensed the blood of the other, it overrode all their base senses, leaving them only with feral rage in its place.

Wingull and swablu both flew above us both, cawing out towards the vast blue ocean. It was an impressive place, and I'd never have had an idea such a place existed if it wasn't for Ayd.

I turned towards him as I heard a poké ball explode open. Irenui appeared in a flash of light and cooed against him for a moment before she took to the skies, quite happily chasing after the low-flying local birds.

He threw open another poké ball, and I found myself staring at the pokémon that formed from its light. Its body was almost non-existent; it seemed to be floating on small tufts of clouds. Its head was completely transparent, and I found that the sunlight bent around a roughly circular shape, though two large, black eyes were immediately visible, regardless of the pokémon's relative transparency. I squinted at it a moment longer, and found that it actually wasn't transparent, more than its head seemed to be made from the same wispy cloud substance as its body, though they moved at a considerably faster rate, and seemed to bend and change ever so slightly as the sun beat down on it.

"This here's Hale," Adryan told me, and the creature chirped happily upon mention of its name. "He's a castform."

I looked at the pokémon curiously. It was just about larger than his trainer's head, and seemed to weight absolutely nothing. It floated around rather happily and continually stared up at the sky. I'd never heard of a castform, much less ever even _seen_ one. Once I told Adryan, he replied that it wasn't much of a surprise; he'd never heard of one before he captured it. Apparently they were engineered by scientists about a century ago in order to help them predict the weather. Supposedly a castform would change its appearance with the weather, and so they could tell from that. However, they made the oversight that the creatures could still breed, and eventually their numbers grew so much that they were able to escape. Now apparently they lived deep within the forests near Fortree, though were wide-spread in every country's areas with harsh weather.

"Let out Xander," he told me as the castform floated cheerily around his head. "Hale here can help him out with a few water moves."

I nodded and released Xander from his ball. He croaked happily upon seeing me and stopped to watch the floating Hale with interest. At Adryan's command it spat a small stream of water at him, and instantly Xander decided to chase after the floating creature. I started after him, noticing him get shocked with a small fry of electricity, though Adryan held me back.

"He'll learn better this way," he told me, nodding towards the two. "Pokémon need to learn by battling as much as possible. There's only so much he can follow your commands, you know? He needs to learn how to battle on his own as best he can; you're here to control him and help him become more powerful. Trainers all have different approaches to battle, and so each helps pokémon become stronger in a different area. Even if you met another trainer with a lotad, chances are yours and his are going to be completely different, even though they're the same species."

I filed the information away without meaning to. My training would make my pokémon both stronger and weaker in some aspects to others of the same species raised by other trainers. It made complete sense. Though it didn't stop me wincing every time I saw Xander receive a small shock of electricity – even if he shook it off instantly afterwards. He leapt up at Hale a few times, attempting to snatch it with his teeth, though every time the castform floated away cheerily.

Hale was a deadly fighter, I could tell that much. He floated around and loosed elemental attacks as if they were brilliant fireworks. Every attack he made with deadly execution, it was like he was dancing a deadly dance within the air. Sparks, flames, ice and more would dance off him at random intervals and explode out in every direction. I had no doubt that if it were trying, Xander would have been dead in less than a second. No matter where Xander tried to hide, or how quickly he reacted, every attack of Hale's hit. They were all weak, that was obvious, though they seemed to be in random order. If Xander came too close, Hale would float out of the way, and would occasionally ram into the lotad's body with crushing force.

It was scary to think it was only toying with him.

"You need to identify your pokémon's flaws in regards to battling," Adryan began to instruct me. Like me, he was watching the faux-battle, though with a considerably straighter face than me. "Your pokémon seems reluctant to attack until he's attacked. I know some can be like that naturally, like your sableye, but you need to make sure they're ready to attack whenever they need to. It's one thing to let your opponent attack first and take advantage, but it's another to just sit around and wait to be attacked."

I nodded. It was yet more work I had to do. He told me to release Loki to help him too. I was reluctant, though realised with two pokémon out nearby, and a large flying dragon circling overhead, he'd be reluctant to attack.

I was wrong.

He found the first shadow he could and dove into it. As soon as anything got close he lashed out and tried to sever everything indiscriminately. I hissed him name at him, though got no answer. I barked his name once more and advanced on him. I reached my hand out to grab one of the gems on his front, knowing it would cause him pain and stop him. I barked the word 'no' at him and raised my hand slightly, causing him to stop in his tracks. He remembered how much pain I'd managed to cause on him, and obviously didn't want to repeat it again. I realised then I would have to associate the word 'no' with the threat, and soon enough he'd realise with just the verbal command.

On the other hand, I needed commands for everything else. But that was another matter. I growled for him to stop once more with my newly-decided verbal command, and he stopped in his tracks. He dropped his arms to his side and looked up, relenting all attack. I smiled and changed my tune, offering him a small pellet of food as a treat. He gobbled it up happily and stayed by my side, jumping up in excitement every so often, trying to claim more of the treats. It took me hissing the command multiple times at him to get him to understand to stop, though every now and then he would try again.

It was fast wearing on my admittedly small amount of patience.

The whole time, Adryan had been completely silent. I thought he would say something about my training methods, though realised earlier he had told me that everyone _did_ have different training methods. I simply assumed that he was going along with such a train of thought.

There was also the fact that he had a pokémon stood by his side. It was a gardevoir, and the very sight of it made a cold shiver race down my spine. I never understood the legends that gardevoir were creatures of beauty, able to entice any human towards their doom with their so-called 'otherworldly' beauty. I had to wonder if any of them had ever seen a gardevoir in the flesh before.

They were terrifying creatures.

The only aspect of their legend that was true was their hair. It was more fur, but long, thin and sleek enough to pass for human hair. It cascaded down past the creature's shoulders and framed most of its face. The supposed 'dress' they wore was actually the skin of their defeated enemies. The longer the creature's dress, the more deadly it was. Adryan's had a dress that reached all the way down to the floor. If you looked close enough, you could still see the veins on the skin that covered its body. It was tied around the creature's waist and protected its thin, vulnerable lower body and legs hidden underneath. One long, fearsome red spike protruded from its chest and back both and was the colour of blood. Its arms were a green the same colour as its hair, and its face was sunken like that of a heroin addict. Its eyes were blood red and evil-looking, and large white spikes framed its cheeks. Its mouth had multiple fangs visible, and they could stretch their mouths past their necks to swallow prey.

Perhaps most fearsome of all were their hands. They were the same green as its arms, though ended in five fearsome claws in place of fingers and thumbs, each as long as my forearm.

Gardevoir were demonic creatures, nothing more than the stuff of nightmare. Legends can only have been born of them through their use of psychic manipulation. They needed to skin enough victims quickly enough to form their skirt soon after, or preferably before their evolution. The only creatures that were large enough with skin soft enough to use were the likes of slaking, alakazam and machamps among others, though humans were also used. A gardevoir could alter someone's perceptions to convince them it was a beautiful creature, then kill them and skin them alive for its dress.

They were evil creatures... and most likely humans in pokémon form because of such.

Adryan grinned at me as Loki backed away, clutching to my leg in fear. Even though he had a natural advantage over it, he still feared it. It showed how fearsome the creatures were. Ayd patted the gardevoir on the shoulder, and I considered running at that very moment.

"You... have a gardevoir?" I whispered, choked with fear.

"Mh-hm," he grunted with a nod. "This is Willow."

And suddenly, my brain felt like it was on fire.

_[Greetings human-friend of master Adryan.]_

I screamed as the voice burned within my mind. It felt like every cell within my brain burst all at once, replaced only with burning hot fire that came from the pits of hell itself. "_My brain_!" I shrieked, and couldn't have sounded less manly if I tried. Everything I'd learnt about psychics ran through me at that moment, and I felt cold-burning fear erupt from my heart. "_It's screwing with my brain!"_ I freaked out on the spot. _"I'm going to get a tumour and become the newest skin for it's dress!"_

"Dude, calm down!" Adryan hissed at me. My hysteria wasn't broken until he slapped me, _hard_, across the face. I blinked even as he looked back at the creature and tilted his head, seemingly having a conversation with the creature. "She isn't killing you," he told me, speaking over my hyperventilation. "It's a psychic's telepathy." He shook me until he was sure I was paying attention, and even then I was still trying to recover my breath. I was dimly aware Xander and Hale had stopped sparing, though Loki was still hidden behind my leg, though he peered his head around and hissed at the demonic psychic.

"I forgot you weren't adjusted," Adryan whispered, gripping me tightly until he was sure I'd calmed down. "When it first happens, they're jump-starting your brain, so to speak. Most humans don't have the specialist brain cells already present required for telepathy. If you don't have them already, when a psychic speaks to you with telepathy they're effectively starting it for you." He gripped my shoulders and offered a small, reassuring smile. "Honestly, what they're doing is destroying brain cells your brain is never going to use, and forcing them to become cells able to receive and give telepathic messages." He looked back at the demon and then to me. "It takes a long while to adjust. Depending on the pokémon, it can take anything up to a few months for you to be able to send any thoughts back." He smiled grimly and pressed my backpack into my hands. "Take some painkillers. I know from experience it's going to hurt like a bitch for a few days. It's never going to be as painful as that again, though every it happens in going to be painful for you."

I nodded, and with shaking hands I pulled a handful of painkillers from my bag and gripped my flask of water. I considered taking them all then and there, just to get rid of all the pain, but knew I'd most likely need all of them later. Instead I took double the dose and prayed the pain would dim soon. It still felt like someone was sticking burning hot pokers into my brain and stabbing with childish glee.

"How bad... was it... for you?" I wheezed.

Adryan offered a small, apologetic grin. "About the same as yours really. I should have warned you before hand, but I've had Willow since she was a ralts. I was about thirteen when I caught her, and made sure I trained her as much as I could. It was hell for about a month, but by the end of it, there wasn't any pain anymore." He placed a hand on my shoulder. "And it doesn't fuck up with your brain," he reassured me. "Sharing thoughts and images doesn't cause any sort of brain damage. It's only when you start trying to share the pokémon's abilities, like telekinesis or precognition that it fucks you up."

I nodded. It was reassuring to know. "How about... we don't mention that again?" I breathed, clutching my aching head. "I think I just lost a _lot_ of man points with that display..."

He laughed deep from his gut. "I think I can agree with that. Anyway-" he stood back up and stepped next to his pokémon. I noticed the demon laced its fingers with him, and I shuddered at the thought of touching such a creature. It just looked so... _evil._ "I got Willow out to help Loki."

I stared between the demon and my trickster. He looked downright terrified of it, and his ears were pressed against his head as he bared his teeth at it. "Are you sure?" I asked.

He grunted approval as he nodded. "I know dark-based creatures are immune to most psychic probes, but that's only meaning when it's used directly on them. A psychic can't pick up a dark creature telekinetically and throw it over the horizon, but it can pick up a tree and smack it clean over the border instead. Besides-" he smiled at the demon, "-Willow can teleport if the need arises. I'm sure if your sableye succumbs to the blood thirst again, she can easily keep him on his toes. She can even make sure he can't do anything but attack her."

I nodded. It sounded good. And I wanted to get away from the demon as soon as possible. I bent down to Loki and scratched his head. He growled past me at the demon, though was content with my attention to him. I grinned and sensed it would be a good time to test how vicious he could be. Even though he'd all but killed that trainer's machop, I wanted to know he was capable of it at any time, but stopped himself only because of my training.

I smirked conspiringly at him. "Sic'em," I growled.

He looked up and his eyes completely darkened for a moment, before they lit up again. I assumed it was him blinking. I kept up my smirk and gestured towards the demon at my back. "Get'er," I repeated.

He didn't need telling twice. With a haunting cackle he leapt forth, hell-bent on having her blood. The demon, however, conjured eerie purple flames around her and her trainer both. They whipped around them, forming a protective barrier between Loki and them two, causing Loki to continually have to dart in amongst their flames.

Adryan gave a nod, and the demon vanished from her position. Loki leapt up and glanced around apprehensively, though suddenly the demon was behind him, claws ready and slashing wildly at the air. Where Hale was a deadly acrobat, she was a murderous ballerina. Her cleaves nearly took of Loki's ears and head more than once, and the trickster was suddenly on the defensive, running as fast as he could from the horrible demonic beast. He was doing nothing more than running for his life, and I wanted to recall him and use his plan of fleeing from the creature.

Adryan seemed to sense my thoughts. "Your pokémon are going to go through a lot worse than this," he told me. Xander was still being abused by the floating Hale, though he seemed to be attempting to dodge and hit an airborne target, rather than Loki's flee-for-your-life tactics. "You'll never do well in a gym challenge if you haven't trained them well. Both of my pokémon are working at less than a tenth of their power."

I blinked and stared at them both, numb with shock. They were nothing more than a blur on multiple occasions, and I was nothing short of amazed when my pokémon actually managed to dodge their attacks. Though I was beginning to realise how this would help them; both were developing their speed and evasion, but no doubt Xander's accuracy would improve, and so would Loki's defences.

"Pokémon learn by experience," Adryan lectured me. "Much like how we learn from our defeats, so do they. However, theirs is a lot more obvious," he allowed. "I mean, you've been shot before, but you've never really _learnt _from it, other than to not let yourself fall into that situation. Pokémon are a lot different.

"Willow was shot before," he told me, gravely. He watched her with a stoic expression, his eyes shrouded behind his glasses. "She'd just evolved, and we were travelling through Sinnoh's wilds. We reached a settlement on Mount Coronet, and some goon with a rifle shot her on sight."

I was amazed at the anger I saw in those few words. However, I considered anyone in their right mind would unload a magazine-full of bullets into such a creature if they saw it. I myself would have shot it.

Multiple times.

In the face.

Hell, I knew it was tame, and I still would have shot the demon if I had a gun!

I looked at it and couldn't help but shudder. Gardevoir weren't natural. They were evil looking creatures and they made my blood run cold. I knew that I wouldn't want to encounter one on a sunny day, let alone in a dark alley. There were many pokémon to be afraid of, and such demons were ones that freaked the shit out of me.

"I had to rush her to a pokémon centre," Adryan told me, malice in his tone. "Luckily Irenui was a flygon by then, but I was only just starting to train her to fly. I think that whole day was one terrifying experience: seeing my pokémon get shot, and then having to fly a clumsy dragon a few thousand feet in the air. Willow healed up perfectly fine, but people never stopped seeing her as a monster. A few months later we were headed towards Pastoria, and some goons decided to jump us. We didn't realise, but they had a sniper hidden in the mountains. They were poachers who were killing trainers and selling off their pokémon."

"Sinnoh sounds like a lawless state," I commented. I hadn't seen much bad in Hoenn, but I couldn't imagine people going around killing trainers for their pokémon.

He shrugged. "It's about the same as anywhere else. Sad thing is, some trainers are more powerful than local police forces, so they effectively become immune to the law." He leant back and popped his back. "But we were there, got stopped by these poachers at gunpoint. None of us knew there was a sniper until we heard him fire three gunshots. Willow had learnt. She grabbed those bullets from the air itself and directed them into the poachers holding us up. Then because they'd threatened me, she ripped apart their every _atom_, including the guy that was stupid enough to shoot her."

My mouth was agape. I didn't realise the demons were so powerful in addition to being so aesthetically terrifying. "You sound like you really bonded well with it."

He shrugged and glanced over to it. "I suppose, but it helps that she's a gardevoir." He looked back at me and placed his hands behind his head. "Gardevoir and gallade are strange pokémon. If they're raised by a trainer well enough, then they fall in love with the trainer, and will go to any lengths – including sacrificing themselves – to protect the trainer."

I stared in dumbfounded amazement at him. I had never heard about any pokémon falling in love with a human, or vice versa. And that demon was in love with Adryan? I had the mental picture of him in its embrace, making out with it with heated passion. I had to fight the urge to be sick.

"They fall in love with their trainers?" I echoed, bewildered.

He nodded. "Yeah. Gallade's is meant to be more from the loyal honour of a knight, and gardevoir's from just infatuation, but no matter what, both species fall in love with their trainer, regardless of the trainer's gender. Ever heard the phrase 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'? Well _hell_ fears a gardevoir who couldn't protect it's trainer."

I shuddered. Anything was right to fear the demons. I supposed it was good to have one of them that would literally go to any lengths to protect its trainer, but I still didn't want one near me at the same time. I would have been happy to never have to see one of the horrific creatures ever again.

He snapped his fingers and both his pokémon stopped their assaults for a few minutes. My however, flopped down on the floor, beaten and weary. They only got a few minutes rest before Ayd snapped his fingers again, and his pokémon began to chase after mine, regardless of their exhaustion. I noticed a few times the demon stopped itself from going through a slice that would have taken Loki's head off, and Hale never used attacks that were strong enough to actually cause lasting damage to Xander. They were both incredibly trained, and I again found myself awed by Adryan's abilities as a trainer.

He himself grinned and plucked another poké ball from his belt. "I'd show you Siren, but you've already met her," he told me. He threw his arms out to the sides and circled his fingers. "And well, there's not exactly anywhere I can put her safely. Lapras can be left on land well-enough, but they move pretty damn slowly and can only manage about an hour before they need to be back in the water." He shielded his eyes and looked up to the sky, where Irenui was happily flying along above us, kicking up sand with every flap of her wings. "And at least this one can keep her company."

I had to take a few steps back as the light exploded in front of me. It stretched up a good three feet above me, and I found myself unable to stop gawping as the creature came completely into focus. It had a large brown, quadruped body that was as tall as my shoulders. Its neck was thick and a good three feet tall, and its head was an equal shade of brown. The top of its head had a large bump and was a deep green, the same as the eye-guards that naturally grew either side of its face. Four large leaves – each as big as me – grew from its back, and even more wrapped around its chest and the base of its neck as a natural armour. Large yellow claws the size of my hand grew on each of its feet, and curiously, a bunch of bananas grew from its chin.

It rumbled a low, threatening sound, and I was afraid it was going to eat me. Instead it leant down and licked my face like a dog, though it still had enough force to send me stumbling back a step or two.

"_Leif!"_ Adryan chastised the creature. It rumbled again and craned its long neck to him, and it gave him the saddest eyes it could muster. Though, seeing as they belonged to a nine-foot tall tropical dinosaur, it didn't exactly have the desired effect.

"Silly boy," he said, though laughed as he rubbed the top of its head. Its eye-guards flicked back flat against its skull, giving it a three-sixty-degree view. "Not everyone's as strong as you, you do realise this?"

I stared at it in amazement. I'd never seen a tropius so close before. I knew they were formidable creatures, yet never thought I'd see one so placid. The large growth of green atop its head grew over its face like a small guard, shielding it from sunlight. This close, I could see that they had vein-patterns like leaves, though I knew they grew over the extra solid bone in the creature's skulls that gave additional protection to their otherwise fragile heads.

"This is Leif," he introduced me to the creature. Its eyes rolled sideways in their sockets to see me fully, and it gave another low rumble. "He's harmless really," Adryan told me as he rubbed the creature's chin. "Aren't you?" he asked the creature with a laugh. He patted it on the head and pointed skywards. "Irenui's flying around in the skies near here. Wanna chase after her Tiny?"

The tropius gave a deep bellow and licked Adryan across the face. He laughed as he too stumbled back, though grabbed his scarf as the creature's leafy wings beat down around it. They gave enough force to nearly knock me off my feet, though I saw it managed to send Hale and Xander both flying a few feet.

I stared after it as it flew into the sky. I couldn't believe _leaves_ could function as wings for the creature. Then again, I knew that they were actual wings that had grown from the creature itself, and had adapted to absorb chlorophyll. They weren't truly leaves, but were the closest a reptile like it could manage to grow.

I turned to Adryan, one brow higher than the other. "'Tiny'?"

He laughed. "Well, have you seen the size of him? When he got that tall, I _had_ to give him that nickname."

I blinked at him. "You're weird," I decided. Above his two creatures roared, and I looked up in time to see them circling around each other like raptors stalking their prey. "The damn thing's nine foot tall!"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Hard to believe he's just an infant, huh?"

If it were possible, my jaw would have hit the floor. "_That's_... an infant? Just _how_ big do they grow?"

He placed a hand above his head. "Urm, the tallest one recorded was about eighteen feet? They usually grow tall enough to eat all the fruit from banana trees that they can... so roughly fifteen feet?"

I'd never, _ever,_ heard of one growing so huge. I whipped out my pokédex and opened it as fast as I could, intent on hitting the information page I needed. "How comes it says here they're usually about six foot seven?" I asked, practically shoving the screen in his face.

He laughed and took the machine from me, calmly pressing a few buttons. "You're still learning to use this. Most of the time, the heights they give are the measurements they recorded well over fifty years ago, when people were still designing these. They took the height from _one_ of each species, and decided it was the normal height for them." He handed the machine back to me and pointed for me to look at the screen. _"That's_ more like their heights."

I stared at the electronic display. He'd brought up a screen which displayed a lot more in depth information as to the creatures. There were two small boxes labelled 'height' and 'age' that I could adjust at will, and below was a picture of a tropius at those specifics. It detailed high amounts; down from the structure of the creature, to showing how the wings and neck grew over time. As I flicked through the 'age' column, I could see the creature growing and shrinking before my very eyes.

In a simple way, it was immensely amusing.

"So then why do keep the old, outdated heights?" I asked after finding out from him exactly how he got to such a screen. I wished that these inventions had existed in my time; they would have proved so much more useful in warfare rather than just word-of-mouth and recounts of journeys into the wilds.

He waved a hand in the air. "Something to do with 'safe heights'. Supposedly, if a pokémon is taller or heavier than the 'normal' figure offered, novice trainers shouldn't try to train them. It mainly means they're older than the age you can really train them effectively. The older a pokémon is, the longer it trains them to do things. The younger they are, the quicker they pick up on everything." He looked at me with a frown. "Did you never pay attention in trainer school or something?"

I stared at him a moment, flustered. "I uh, skipped a lot," I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Regretting it now eh? Good thing you've got me here with you, eh?" I couldn't have agreed more with that statement if I'd tried. "Ah well, guess you should meet the last of my team then."

Another explosion of light made me scrunch my eyes shut. When I opened them, I found myself staring at a strange red boulder that was just a bit smaller than my waist. Various cream dots covered its surface, and there were large holes in random places on the boulder, which were circled with the same cream colour. I stared at it in intrigue, though yelped as a scaly yellow head popped out of one of the holes. It seemed to only just fit out of the hole, and seemed like a rather thick snake hiding in a rock – it even had snake-like eyes, though they were at the front of its face, and had small slits for nostrils. However, four limbs poked out of the boulder, two on each side, each as thick as one of my legs. The creature blinked at me, disinterested, and lay its head down on the boulder covering its body.

"That's Ward," Adryan explained, a smile in his voice. "He's a lazy git, but he's one of the best pokémon I have. You might not believe it, but nothing else can take a hit like his species."

I considered it a moment. I knew it was a shuckle, a creature known to be nigh-invincible. They were naturally incredibly weak, though supposedly had started creeping into large rocks for protection eras ago. Apparently, because they spent so long in the rocks, being exposed to the same conditions as them, they eventually developed a shell of their own that was as tough as rock. But from there, the creatures had only evolved further, and their shells were meant to be nearly as tough as diamond.

I knew for myself how strong they were. I'd seen bullets ricochet off their shells so many times it had lost all humour, though none of the amazement. Only the strongest of pokémon or industrial tools could actually break a shuckle's shell, and in the mean time, the creature hiding within could easily wear down at the attacker's vitality with vicious poisons.

Ayd's pokémon didn't help the stereotype. It simply lay there, unbothered by everything.

I resisted the urge to poke it. "Isn't it going to do anything?"

"Probably not," he laughed, though crouched beside the creature. It lifted its head sleepily and blinked at him, making a strange cooing sound as Adryan rubbed the bottom of its chin. "But I wouldn't want to be the pokémon that get in his way. He can tie them up and just poison them slowly from the outside in, set traps within the ground itself... pretty much just screw everything up that comes near us." He jumped back to his feet and placed his hands behind his head, staring to the sky and watching his two flyers enjoy the open air. "This is my strongest team. They can beat almost anything without much effort, and I've got a different tactical approach for every sort of situation with them." He grinned to himself. "They'll help me survive the Origin Cluster, and they'll be my team that'll demolish everyone in the league this year."

I looked at him and found that his grin was infectious. I didn't know what was making me grin so much, but no matter how much I struggled to stop, I just found it kept making its way onto my face. "So what are you going to do afterwards? Can champions act as guards? You said there were some near Cerulean..."

Thankfully he didn't flinch at my indication of his earlier tale. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I'm more than qualified to be a pokémon ranger: you only need a set of twenty badges for that." He must have noticed my confused look, for he laughed lightly. "They patrol most of the dangerous places with countries, like the forests, the caves, those sorta things. Anywhere where there's likely to be a lot of trainers that won't survive the journey through there, they patrol to make it safer, as well as help locate and report the dead." He waved his arms in the air like an excited child. "They help out most police forces too, patrolling most routes and trying to keep towns safe from gangs."

I nodded and made sure I remembered the information. I reasoned that it would without a doubt be useful sometime later on. "And champions?" I pressed.

"They do the harder work," he supplied. "All the horrible places, like the Origin Cluster and Mount Silver are patrolled by small groups of two or three champions, in addition to one member of the country's Elite Four. In the absence of police they can even enforce the law, though more often than not, they decide they _are_ the law. The police forces are often stronger than rangers, though very rarely are stronger than a champion. It's why there can be bandits or the like that are stronger than the local police. But the champions answer to the Elite Four of each country – they act like the head of all trainers, so to speak. Alongside being the most powerful trainers in the country, they tell the governments exactly what needs to happen with regards to trainer safety, and they're the first step for everything trainer related. No new law that concerns trainers can be passed without the mutual consent of both groups."

I nodded and filed the information away with the last lot. "So, the Elite Four are in charge of a country's law force then?" I gathered.

He tilted his head side-to-side. "Yes and no. Officially; no. Unofficially? Yes. The champions that are available are usually used when the police forces storm criminal organisations. They're often used when people try to protest too, there's been loads of times when people have attacked league officials because of trainer deaths or even because a wild pokémon has killed a few too many people. Champions usually muscle in and try to deal with the situation, though often make it worse." He scowled and shook his head. "Most of the time, they just make it worse. I don't think I could be one of those."

"Elite Four member?" I suggested.

"Not sure," he responded. "Most Elite Four have to be an advanced type-specialist, if only because if something's going wrong with one specific type of pokémon, they have someone who can exert authority over them. Most likely, I could be a fire type specialist but-" he shrugged theatrically, "-I'm not all that keen on them, to be honest."

I felt my head pounding within my skull at all the information he'd given me. There was no way I could have learnt it all on my own. I told him this, and I got another laugh out of him.

"Hey, I'm just making sure you're ready for the world," he said with a toothy grin. "I wouldn't be a good mentor or friend if I didn't do that, would I?" He threw his arm around my shoulder and ruffled my hair. "Just you watch, I'll make a semi-decent trainer out of you yet."

"Your faith in me is commendable," I drawled.

I had to wonder just how I would ever manage to keep every bit of information I learnt from him to hand. I needed it all for my journey, though I never knew exactly when I would. All that mattered then was proving to myself that I could handle myself in this new world. It just meant it started with a gym battle. That would show me exactly whether or not I had what I took to survive in the new world.

I just wish someone had actually told me what nonsense that was. The gym battles only prepared a person for the battles they faced.

The true horrors of the world were another story entirely.


	15. The Stone Badge

_**Pokemon**_

**_Regret_**

**The Stone Badge**

**

* * *

**_Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. _~ Vince Lombardi

**-O-O-O-**

_"People can bring fossils back to life. People have successfully created artificial pokemon. There's one question you've got to ask yourself though: where will it all stop?"_

- Billy Blake, co-founder of the G.P.P.A. - the Global Pokemon Protection Act. _(November 28th, 2909)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The day of my first gym battle had come around, and I found myself near enough jumping around from nerves. I shouldn't have been so worried really, but in my mind, the gym battle was the first stepping stone in my journey. If I couldn't beat it, what chance did I have of travelling round and actually doing any good to change the future? If I couldn't beat a gym leader and use the authority of being a trainer with badges, what could I actually do? If I failed in the gym, I'd convinced myself that I'd fail in my journey too.

I was really building myself up for a massive fall.

I needed something to distract myself. My gym battle wasn't until eleven-hundred-fifteen, and the clock told me it was barely oh-nine hundred. I planned on leaving for the gym at ten hundred, which gave me an hour of muddling over what I could do in an attempt to distact myself.

I distracted myself with the pokédex for a while. I started to flick through the many settings it had, further analysing pokémon I knew about and cross comparing what weaknesses I knew and didn't know of, and checking pokémon I had never heard of before. The time was flying by before I realised it, as I became completely engrossed in the subject matter.

I hit the page on the demons known as gardevoir. Everything it said there more or less confirmed what Adryan had told me about the demons before. There was a large warning, however, to avoid any markings around an area that looked like one of the demons had drawn its claws down trees or rocks, marking a perimeter. Apparently it was a marking that the demon inhabiting the perimeter was on heat, and would take the nearest creature, regardless of their species or gender.

I hoped never to fall into such a situation.

Twenty minutes passed as I learnt more from the machine. I glanced towards the clock and found my nerves bundling up again. I growled and decided to focus my attention yet again. I grunted and lay down on the floor, my feet tucked under the bedside table. I began doing sit-ups to calm my nerves; the familiar routine allowing my mind to completely zone out on my current situation. As strange as it was, it was familiar to me. If nothing else, performing exercises reminded me of being in the base camps back in my own world. When we were training, we always had other guards watching over us. It was the only time I'd ever felt safe, and by falling into the exercises, somehow I felt safe again.

I had managed to reach a total of sixty-eight by the time Adryan woke up. He looked over to me and blinked sleepily, obviously trying to work out whether or not he was awake or not. Eventually he managed a sleepy, "What're you doin'?"

I looked at him, mentally keeping score as I continued exercising. "Sit-ups," I answered, dryly. "Needed to... waste some time."

He lifted an eyebrow at him. I noticed for the first time just how different he looked without his glasses; it was like his face seemed longer and sunken without them. It was weird.

"And you chose sit-ups?" he asked, amazed.

"Uh-huh," I grunted. "You should try it," I told him, still mentally keeping count. "You never know... it helps you keep fit... and keeps your muscles... working at their best."

He looked at me a moment more. Then he lifted up his shirt and poked at his stomach. "I'll take having a bit of a belly, thanks."

I looked at him with a smirk. "Your choice." My count reached a hundred and I collapsed on the floor, panting slow, deep breaths. "When you get mistaken for a munchlax... don't blame me."

He laughed sardonically then slapped me in the face with a pillow. "I'm gonna grab a shower," he told me, already climbing out of his bed. "When I'm done we can get going, alright?" I'd barely nodded before he shut the bathroom door behind him. After all of a minute debating what to do, I heard it open again and saw his head float around the doorframe. "It took me two years to get eight badges," he said, taking a grave tone. "Don't worry if you don't manage to win today. There's nineteen other gyms in Hoenn that you can take on at any time, in any order. I'd challenged mostly all of them at least three times by the time I finally got all eight." His face fell, no doubt seeing my completely crestfallen look. "But I've learnt from then. And I've taught you things I've learnt. I've got no doubt that you'll do a lot better than me."

I think he was trying to make me feel better. Of course, like most of the times when Adryan did so, he ended up making my fears leap up tenfold too. He'd taken two _years_ to get eight badges! There I believed I could get all eight within less than _one_! He'd told me that people had managed it, and that he was only a weaker trainer, but I couldn't help but think that I was the one that was learning from him.

Then again, the weakest people sometimes proved to be the strongest, when needs be. They spent all their time learning and training, when the strongest would just leave their abilities to stagnate in comparison. So maybe it was for the best that he was the one tutoring me.

Thankfully he finished in the shower in quicker time than I thought. It only left us to make a scan of the room and make sure we had everything before we checked out. Adryan forced me to get something to eat on the way, even if it was just a cheap sandwich. He didn't seem to understand I'd lived for years pushing myself on only power bars and water, and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Eventually I bought the cheapest, thinnest sandwich I could find, just to appease him. I knew he was only looking out for me, yet I still couldn't shake the feeling like he was treating me more as a baby brother than a friend.

I couldn't hold it against him though.

Though, he did irk me further when we arrived at the gym with ten minutes to spare until my actual battle. He tried to defend it by saying that we were still early. I wanted to glare his head off. On time to me was at least fifteen minutes early. Early was arriving at least half an hour before the allotted time.

Regardless, Roxanne didn't seem to mind. She turned up in the gym's reception five minutes after we arrived and greeted us both with a warm smile, as if we were all going out for dinner, rather than pitting our pokémon against each other in violent brawls. She gave us a small tour of the gym, pointing out small features like fire escapes along the way. She explained that she would only take on the task herself on quiet days at the gym, like the one I challenged on. Otherwise, she'd have one of her officials give the tour. Apparently it was mostly because of legal issues; if the gym caught fire or collapsed because of the battle or external factors, the gym itself was liable if the trainer didn't know how to escape.

I was silent for a while, considering it all. I truly had no idea how much legal work went into a gym. It was mad, and yet somehow, made complete sense. I just knew then and there that if I ever completed my quest, I'd never own a gym myself. It just seemed too much hassle.

Finally she led us to a stadium within the gym. A large battleground was the centre focus – a rectangular pitch that was the length of a football pitch. Roxanne explained it was smaller than those used in official league championships, though was still large enough to accommodate the large pokémon trainers were known to use. She did explain though, such pokémon were often level four risks, at least, and so she rarely ever had to use or face a pokémon that was such a size.

Two large podiums stood over either side of the pitch, overlooking the entirety of it. I could see a large rectangle drawn out on the pitch, as well as a small circle in the centre. It was supposedly the guidelines for the boundary limits – if a pokémon fell outside the boundary, it was disqualified. The circle in the middle was merely decorative, supposedly to reflect the design of a poké ball. I squinted at it, and decided that it could be, if it had been painted the same colours.

The bleachers that surrounded the entire battlefield were surprisingly empty. I saw a few of the gym's trainers sat down in various places, though figured the stadium itself could fit at least a few thousand people. When I asked Roxanne why, she explained that the pokémon league held the battles in the country's stadiums. Only the final few battles were fought within the Victory Islands – a cluster of islands set out specially for the late-stage battles. Supposedly each set of stages were held in the stadiums round the country – often there were about ten stages leading to the final few, which meant ten of the country's stadiums would be used. She said it generated a lot of tourism for the towns involved, and kept the country's economic flow in balance.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that in a decade, there would be no money left in the country.

She directed me down to the battlefield as she walked towards the other direction. I was vaguely aware of Adryan walking down with her, taking a seat on the front row of the bleachers. I strangely found myself calmer than I was an hour before, accepting that if I did happen to lose the battle, I _could_ re-challenge it at any time, or even move onto another town and another gym.

I saw Adryan waving me good luck as I stepped on the podium and analysed the arena. It was a good idea; having a bird's eye view of the battle going on underneath. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was a sitting target, placed alone, high up and surrounded on all sides by potential threats. Even though I knew I was no longer in my own world, I doubted I would ever be able to shake my upbringing.

I glanced across at Roxanne, and was amazed by the change in the woman's demeanour. "Today you're competing for the official Rustboro City Stone Badge," she shouted across to me. Gone was the happy, smiling young woman, and in her place was a hard-faced judge. "I wish you the best of luck!"

She pressed a button and the railing around my podium moved up slowly, shaking all the way. It stopped just above my waist, and the podium itself rose a few feet higher. I was trapped, and immediately felt even more exposed. I didn't like the feeling, though took a deep breath and forced it away. It was a new world, where I wasn't going to be shot in a public place the moment I let down my guard, no matter how much my fear and training screamed at me otherwise.

"I shall be using two pokémon," Roxanne informed me with a cold tone. "You are allowed to use up to six. The battle is over when all of one person's pokémon are incapacitated or killed. If your pokémon step over the boundary lines, then you lose that round. If you command them to attack myself or any other person present, then you are disqualified, and your trainer licence shall be caused into question. Do you understand?"

I nodded and plucked Xander's ball from my bandolier. I knew that regardless of the pokémon she chose, he'd have the advantage over her.

Roxanne nodded at my agreement. She threw a poké ball overhand and exploded into white light. It was a creature roughly a metre tall that had dark purple shell covering its head and main body. Connecting the body and head was a thick yellow spine, and yellow eyes were patterned on its head shell. Eight large pink, spiked tentacles grew out of the crevice in its head, and deep in the darkness of the head shell were a set of two, eerie yellow eyes.

"What _is_ that?" I whispered to myself. I whipped my pokédex out and scanned the creature as quickly as I could. Roxanne had no qualms with it, though I still tried to find out what I could about it in haste. The machine identified the creature as a lileep; a pokémon that died out eras ago, yet was resurrected in fossils. Though most annoying was that it was partially grass in nature, as was Xander. That meant most of his strengths were rendered null and void.

Regardless, he was my best hope. I tossed his ball down and caught it as it rebounded after exploding and releasing the pokémon. He croaked warily and stared at the strange, ancient creature, obviously wanting to keep his distance.

I blinked at it. "Xander, blast it away!" I shouted. He croaked a small noise and spit a solid stream of water at the ancient creature. It shrieked gurgled screams as its head reeled back with the force, though it managed to keep itself in place. Xander growled once more as he let up the attack, and only just managed to jump to the side as a small chorus of seeds were fired from the inside of the lileep's head.

"Plant your roots!" Roxanne yelled at it. The lileep immediately grunted as a number of small, thick green tendrils spread out of its lower body and planted themselves firm in the ground. The pulsed like living veins, almost like they were going through the motions of peristalsis.

I didn't understand what it was doing, though thought nothing of it. I ordered Xander to blast it once more, and watched as more water exploded from his mouth. It shot into the pokémon with deadly force and snapped its neck back far enough to kill it, had it a thinner neck.

"Sandstorm!" Roxanne shrieked. The lileep made a low, droning sound, and almost instantly I felt winds whipping round the whole arena. Sand began flickering around within the air, and I scrunched my eyes shut as some flew into my eye. I cursed and looked away, scrambling in vain to rid the grains from my sight. I heard Xander shriek from down in the battlefield, and as I tried to open my eyes, more sand raked against my eyes and forced me to keep them shut.

I was fighting blind.

_Shit!_ I cursed inwardly and blindly felt for the railing before me. I could feel the sand whipping against my face, and could hear Roxanne shrieking orders like I was listening to a radio from a long distance. Not only was I fighting blind, I was fighting deaf too.

I pressed fingers onto my eyes and thought as quickly as I could, trying to ignore the pain scraping against my eyeballs. "Xander!" I called, though received a mouthful of sand for my efforts. I spluttered and placed a hand over my mouth, covering it the best I could. "You're on your own until the sand clears!"

I coughed and tried to scrape sand from my tongue. I knew pokémon had better senses than humans, and that Xander had a small layer of fluid over his eyes that prevented any obstacles getting in. He would be able to fight in the freak sandstorm, while I could do nothing but stand there, grit my teeth and bare it. I could feel the sand tearing at my skin, falling into my ears and into my clothes, and my ears could only pick up the continual howling of the raging sandstorm. I grimaced and decided that I needed a pair of goggles, or something similar. I knew that some areas of Hoenn were riddled by constant sandstorms, while I knew a sparse few areas had constant hailstorms. I would need them on my journey; I couldn't travel as blind as I was.

I heard the winds die down before I felt them. I opened my eyes to a squint and blinked rapidly to try and get all of the sand out of them. I managed to see a blurry picture of the battleground, where Xander was stood within a small of wet sand, growling at the lileep, who was still tied in place by the strange, throbbing roots. I could see that Xander had a few scratches and was favouring his right hand side, whilst Roxanne's pokémon seemed to be completely uninjured.

Across the field, Roxanne pulled a pair of goggles from her face to her forehead. I briefly wondered where she had got them from before she screamed, "Cover it in acid!"

"Dodge!" I cried out reflexively. Xander croaked and leapt backwards as the fossil spat a large blob of hissing, translucent fluid onto the floor where he was just stood. It bubbled and ate away at the floor, and I couldn't help but wince of the thought of that being my pokémon. He warbled a low, warning growl at the fossil, and I commanded him to blast it once more. He happily complied, though the creature's neck snapped back once more, returning into place again as if nothing had ever happened.

I pulled a face, and I heard Roxanne laugh from across the field. "You can't just carry on like that!" she shouted across to me. "There's more to battle than just outright attacking your opponent! You need to think about strategy!"

I bit my bottom lip and gripped the railing hard. While I knew about strategy, I had no idea how to formulate one on the fly. I was a guard solider: I was told to shoot, I'd shoot. They said jump, I said how high. My guard were brought up on one common command; don't think of your own strategy. If you stopped to think of a new plan of attack, you'd either end up doubting your current plan, or become distracted. Either way, you would end up dead, or at the very least injured.

What did I really know about strategy? I just knew how to attack. Nothing made much sense to me but sheer offensive power. I couldn't suddenly develop strategy, I had to take time to think of plans of action.

I resisted the urge to pull out my hair. I couldn't just lose on my first attempt at a gym battle; it was falling at the first hurdle – I didn't want to consider really starting in failure.

I thought as quickly as I could. The constant, throbbing veins attacking the lileep to the floor were not only keeping it fixed in place, but they seemed to be healing all the damage it took. I bit the inside of my cheek, I needed to get rid of those roots!

That was my plan of action!

"Xander, severe the roots!" I ordered. Water exploded from his mouth once more, and shot into one of the thick stems tethering it to the ground. Instantly it snapped, and the creature shrieked in pain. "That's it!" I yelled, full of vigour. We'd found our opening, and it was time to exploit it! "Keep it up!"

He croaked an affirmative and shot another of its stems in two. I noticed that there were small bubbles that came with it again, and they burst in the lileep's face even as its roots were continually severed. It shrieked and threw its strange head forwards, smacking into the ground with a jaw-shaking impact. Instantly rocks exploded from the ground with deadly force, each looking as sharp as a spear. Xander shrieked as one pierced his side, and in retaliation he shattered the rock with a full body blow and severed the lileep's final roots with another pressurised water blast.

I bit my bottom lip again. I'd defeated that aspect of the pokémon, but still needed to take it out for good. I gathered that its neck was possibly its weakest point, but knew Xander wouldn't want to exploit such a fact. He warbled once more as spiked-rocks pierced the battlefield, and blood began trickling from his side. I saw a chunk of his flesh atop one of them, and couldn't help but wince. No doubt that hurt.

I wracked my brains as quickly as I could. The creature's face was hidden well within a crevice in its head, no doubt shielding it perfectly from outside assault. Though it could quickly prove to be a viable weak spot.

"Xander, up on a rock!" I shrieked at him. He croaked and scuttled atop one, narrowly dodging a few more rocks exploding from the ground. He growled from atop his new perch, and I waited until he had fully adjusted before ordering him to blast the creature's face with water. He warbled and managed to get the creature dead in the face, eliciting a chorus of gurgling shrieks from the pokémon. It hissed and swayed back and forth, and its head smacked onto the ground, hard, yet again.

This time though, no more rocks exploded from the ground. It gave a weary, defeated sigh and fell limp completely as water trickled free of its hidden face.

Roxanne smiled at me. "Well done," she praised as she recalled the pokémon. She looked at its ball long enough to confirm it was still alive before she replaced it onto her belt. "I'm impressed you managed to defeat my pokémon despite having no outright strategy. I suppose, in some way, you did prove that brawn can beat brains."

Xander croaked his happy reply. I winced at his sagging posture, and knew he wasn't going to be able to last long against the next pokémon. I cursed and weighed up my choices: I could expose Xander to another battle just for his natural advantages, or I could go for Loki, if only because he was in full health. Though it was a risk, given my lack of control over him.

"Though rest assured," she promised me, "this next pokémon won't be as easily beaten."

I felt my eyebrows jump into my hairline. She considered that battle _easy_ for me? I would have given up then and there at that comment alone, given the fact it installed the fear of God into me. If those battles were classed as '_easy,_' what were the hard ones going to be like?

She tossed another poké ball forth, and white light poured out of it like liquid out of a bottle. I found myself unable to stop staring at the creature that formed – a pokémon as large as lileep, though it seemed to be made completely out of dull, cobalt rock. Its arms spun around its sides like two compasses, and it had squinting eyes that stared out from a recess in the rock. Most prominent however, was a large copper rock fused to its front, looking almost like a large, cold sufferer's nose.

I stared a moment as the nosepass hummed. For the first time I realised why the stadium was constructed in such a way: her pokémon could only face north, due to the magnetic nature of its supposed nose. If she was battling on my side of the field, her pokémon would constantly have its face pointed towards her, and its back to the enemy.

I knew I had to exploit that weakness. I recalled Xander in a flash of light before Roxanne could make sure her pokémon attacked him. I replaced his ball and gripped Loki's, considering what would happen if I released him. I made a quick surveillance of the area, noticing the number of shadows that loomed around the arena. If he made a run for it, he'd have ample opportunity to escape.

"Do you give up?" Roxanne shouted across to me.

Honestly, I considered it for a moment. I didn't want to risk using Loki and losing him once more to his blood thirst. Though something in me told me I'd never progress as a trainer if I feared using him again. It was a risky step forwards, but something I needed to do.

I shook my head at her, and threw Loki's poké ball forwards, aiming it for the lightest portion of the battlefield. He hissed on emergence, glaring at all the lights baring down on him. His ears flicked back against his head, and he skulked round in a mad circle, growling in feral anger at all of the light beating down on him.

"_Loki!"_ I hissed at him, snapping him to attention. He looked up and glared, though I noticed a sinister smirk appear on his face. He realised quickly that with the podium keeping me so far away from him, I wouldn't be able to hit him in correction. He cackled and threw his head back maniacally, and I felt my cheeks flush red in heated anger.

"Loki!" I hissed once more, fully aware that Roxanne was only being polite in letting me attempt to control him. "Get the nosepass, and stay in the white borders!" I pointed first to the opposing pokémon, and then mapped out the boundaries for him. He cackled once more and leapt to the side, stretching and pressing a clawed foot tauntingly on the white paint signifying the border.

I growled and clenched my fists against the railing. I wasn't about to lose all because of his childish disobedience. "Do that, and you won't be getting any treats later!"

He seemed to change instantly. He snapped to attention, foot leaping back completely from the white border lines. He straightened and looked at me, and I gave him a small nod and a smile. "Now get that nosepass!"

He cackled and loomed towards the pokémon. Roxanne shrieked at it to tackle Loki, and I found myself completely baffled as the large rock pokémon shot forwards with amazing speed. Its legs weren't even moving – in fact it propelled itself forth in a completely straight line of motion, and I had to assume it was only because of magnetism. Loki laughed and leapt around it, slicing it beneath its rocky arms as he passed it. The nosepass shrieked and whipped a rocky hand at the ghost, though Loki fell backwards into a shadow, baffling both his foe, and its trainer.

He immediately leapt out of the shadows and landed on the nosepass' face as a flurry of claws and teeth. The nosepass howled in agony, though I heard an ominous buzzing as Roxanne shrieked at it to discharge. I barely managed to tell Loki to get away before the rock's nose sparked with bright electricity, and suddenly my pokémon was flooded with all the energy.

Loki wailed as the electricity coursed through him, and dropped off the nosepass, landing as a twitching, sparking heap on the floor. I called out to him and took a step forwards, even as Roxanne smirked victoriously.

"Call him back," she told me. "It's obvious he's lost."

I didn't believe her. I could see my pokémon moving occasionally, and I knew he was still able to fight. "Loki, get up!" I hissed at him. I had fought through all sorts of pain all my life, and I expected the same from my pokémon! If I had gone through a training regime with a broken wrist and a sprained ankle, he could fight pass non-fatal electrocution.

"Get up!" I repeated as a hiss. "Keep behind it!" I yelled, noticing my ghost struggle back to its feet. "It can't get you from there – you'll have a free reign of attacking!"

He seemed to like that idea. Instantly he was on his feet, cackling his demonic cackle once more. The nosepass attempting to slap him, though he quite happily pressed a hand onto the limb and used the momentum to leap over the pokémon and begin clawing at the back of its head. It shrieked and attempted to spin around to slap the threat, though managed nothing more than a small pivot.

Roxanne smirked and shrieked for another discharge. This time Loki listened as I barked at him to get away, and he leapt into a shadow and managed to disappear completely from view. He leapt again at the nosepass, slashing wildly at its back in a flurry of movement. I frowned as I noticed the pattern, realising it was going to take a while with such a plan of attack.

I scowled as the nosepass built up more electricity, though noticed this time that it seemed to spread down its nose before it fired out of the bottom. Obviously the electrical charge came from within the pokémon itself, which meant that it had something to do with the pokémon's magnetic affinity.

I grinned to myself. I knew that if the pokémon lost its magnetic location, it was all but useless for a while. Nosepass moved by almost magnetism alone, which would completely screw it over if it lost the ability, even if only for a few moments.

"Loki, get the top of its nose!" I shrieked at my pokémon. He grunted and looked up at me, obviously at a loss for my command. I scowled and bit the inside of my lip. I hadn't taught him all that much, and as such he couldn't pick up every command. While he knew how to attack, and when to stop, he didn't know more advanced things than that. Instead I found myself puppeting my idea to him. His eyes lit up in delight, and instantly he was upon the creature. He snarled demonic little noises as he slashed into the nosepass' large magnetic nose, even as it wailed in pain. He gnawed at its head and punched at its covered eyes even as his clawed feet raked down on the rock's nose. Roxanne shrieked at it for a counter attack, though it spent a lot of the time flailing in pain.

Loki finally managed to chip a large chunk of its nose away just as electricity flooded out of it, shocking them both instead of Loki alone. Both creatures dropped to the floor, smoking slightly, though Loki coughed slightly, reaching at the ground with undefeated pride. He clawed his way back to his feet and looked ready to assault the pokémon once more until I commanded him to stop.

He looked at me, fangs bared until I repeated my order as sternly as he could. He nodded, ears drooping as Roxanne analysed the state of her pokémon. It took a moment, but she sighed and recalled it. I felt the podiums begin to descend back to the stairs, and the railings began to draw back into themselves. The amount of noise made Loki hiss in panic, and I recalled him back to the safety of his poké ball.

I found myself numb as I walked down the stairs and near enough swayed on the spot. Everything blurred around me, and my memories seemed nothing more than a distant haze. The battle had ended with Loki struggling to his feet... with the nosepass lying on the ground, twitching randomly... and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ayd leant back in his chair, feet propped up on the railing in front of him, and a grin on his face as he clapped.

I'd won?

The thought didn't seem to register. I stumbled my way around my podium, towards the battlefield, and found that Roxanne stopped a step in front of me, a smile on her face.

"Well done," she said, and flicked her hair behind her shoulder. "More brutal methods than some, though you exploited a little-known weakness well." She smiled at me and pressed her hand between us for me to shake. "I'm a little surprised you made it past the first battle though," she confided. "The lileep's actually stronger than my nosepass, I merely assumed that if you're travelling with an accomplished trainer-" she nodded towards Ayd, who was making his way towards us, "-that you would be able to perform better than most new trainers."

I grinned sheepishly as I shook her hand. "Hopefully I didn't disappoint," I said, my head swimming and not feeling like it was attached to my body.

She smiled and pressed a hand on her hip. "In some ways, you didn't," she said. It was a nice way of saying 'you did' to be honest, but at least there was a small amount of praise in there. "The fact that you beat her means that you've got the potential to go far as a trainer." She winked at me and nodded as Adryan stopped near us. "Though I think you may do well in the Dewford Gym – they specialise in fighting pokémon, so prefer outright attacking methods, much like yourself."

I smiled and rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, I can't exactly think fast on my feet," I admitted. "And I haven't spent much time trying to teach my pokémon any real sort of strategic moves."

Though when I thought about it, I considered that maybe they did know some at that time. I remembered how I got Xander to heal himself with sunlight in the pond – even if it did take an hour to actually fully heal him, and how Loki had managed to get the machop to do nothing but attack him in their battle, and the strange beams of eerie light he was throwing at the fish from Siren's back.

It wasn't that my pokémon couldn't perform strategically, it was more than I couldn't.

"I'm sure you'll manage to, in time," she reassured me. "If you'd like to follow me," she said, already walking past us and out of the stadium. "I'll give you the Stone Badge."

She walked ahead as Adryan fell in line beside me. I noticed his grin stretched to his eyes as he slung his arm around my shoulders and laughed. "Dude, I _knew_ you had it in you! You need to learn some sort of strategy battling," he said, tapping a finger against his chin. "Though otherwise you're doing pretty good; you're managing to notice weaknesses in pokémon pretty quickly – even if they're not exactly common knowledge, or truly fair."

I kept the grin on my face as he talked to me. I had help in noticing the weaknesses of pokémon, after all – I did study it the whole time I grew up. Fair didn't truly matter in a fight, and as long as it didn't get me disqualified from a battle, there wasn't any harm in me exploiting the weaknesses. Besides, I'd managed to finish my battle without killing any pokémon, only injuring Xander and getting Loki to listen for a short while.

I was on a high.

Roxanne led us into her office again and asked me for both my trainer card and my pokédex. I offered them without complaint, and watched as she loaded them both into specialist slots on her computer. I watched as she entered a few commands, her fingers a blur once more, and as a small glowing light shone from both slots. She hummed to herself as Adryan chatted on about aimless nonsense to do with how it seemed like I was stumbling around like a blind old woman when the sandstorm whipped up.

I elbowed him in the ribs for that. I wasn't expecting a sandstorm, _in a building_ of all places, though found out the hard way it could happen. He yelped and jumped nearly a foot in the air, and I couldn't help but grin to myself. At least I found out he was ticklish, which meant I could just jab him there anytime he was starting to get annoying.

Which meant I'd be jabbing him a lot.

Roxanne smiled as she grabbed my trainer card and pokédex both from the computer, and presented them to me with wide, shining eyes. "Here you go," she said, folding her arms as I took them from her. "You're now officially a holder of the Rustboro City badge."

I blinked at her and looked at my trainer identification. On the back was a large table, the size of the card, and I counted that it had enough squares to hold twenty pictures. Sure enough, there was now a small symbol that looked somewhat like a worn, grey boulder. I pressed a finger against it, and found that it was a small computer chip of sorts, imprinted, stuck and coloured on the card.

I looked between her and the card. "This... is a _badge?"_

"Mh-hm," she grunted an affirmative. "They used to be actual badges, but often times thieves or poachers would rob trainers of all the badges they held. It meant they either needed to hope the police found the culprits, travel again to each of the gyms and get a replacement, or simply battle for them once more.

"By computerising them, it's made the badge system a lot safer," she explained, pressing a hand underneath her chin. Her eyes lit up in delight, and I noticed with a small smile that she truly loved teaching anything. "This way, the badge is imprinted on your forms of identification, and is uploaded to the main trainer computer systems. Even if you did manage to lose them, you'll still be registered as holding the badges you've obtained."

Adryan nodded and folded his arms. "Why else do you think I've never shown you mine?" he asked. "Carrying eighty badges would be pretty hazardous, and well, pretty stupid. It stops after the first twenty, and after that, they're all recorded on your 'dex." He flipped his out, and I noticed that his was a dark green as opposed to my crimson machine. "This thing holds the data that I've got all twenty badges from four regions, which means that I don't have to worry about carrying round four separate trainer cards."

Roxanne nodded in agreement to his words. "It's true, the pokédex does become used more as identification the more powerful a trainer is. It's simply because the pokédex is a machine, as opposed to a piece of plastic. It can be forever updated as and when needed, and trainers use it more and more when they have more pokémon, as it helps them keep track of them all, as well as offer advice on training methods and the like."

It was a lot of information, and the familiar feeling of information-overload began to attack my brains. I was pretty sure that if I learnt much more, I'd be suffering a great many nosebleeds. "What if the data gets corrupted though?" I asked. It made sense to me, there were people out there that were brilliant with machines. I'd seen many hackers pull out old records from computers that had been blown to bits, and a few people control little hand-built robots to fly into the wilderness and deploy bombs.

Roxanne beamed once more. She loved teaching information, and I knew that I could get as such as I needed out of her, without the slightest of complaints from her. "Hoenn employs a number of top-hackers to work for their systems, and they're constantly updating and protecting the security of the confidential records, as well as trainer databases and everything pertaining to a trainer's way of life." She quickly un-tied and re-tied her hair into its bow. "They also have a great number of porygon and their upgraded counterparts: the porygon-mark-two that live within cyberspace and act as extra security."

I stared at her, lost for words. "Uh... what's a 'porygon'?" I finally managed to ask.

She looked at me as if I'd grown a second head for a moment. Then she shook her head and plastered on a smile. "They're actually quite well known: I'm surprised you haven't heard about one. They're the first set of completely artificial pokémon created, and are able to roam around cyberspace freely, and with little effort. They can also materialise in our world, though they do tend to look like something out of a low-budget twenty-nine, fifty-four movie."

She and Adryan both laughed at that. I laughed too, if only to not feel left out. I had no idea what they were talking about, but went along with it regardless.

"Anyway, we should get going," Ayd excused us both, offering a smile to Roxanne. "Places to go, you know; that sorta jazz."

She smiled. "I've got to get my pokémon healed and get ready for the next battle anyway, so it's no bother."

I thanked her for the battle, and she told me it was her pleasure before she led us both out of the gym, bidding us both good luck on our respective journeys. Adryan led me back to the centre, and along the way was a happy ball of constant talking. I don't know what he said most of the time, though I did catch the occasional word. It was mostly nonsensical, relaying my battle back to me and pointing out the parts where I did well and not so well.

We got back into the pokémon centre, and after I had given my pokémon both over to the nurse, he dragged me back outside for something to eat in town. I tried to refuse as politely as I could, though the slight grumble of my stomach betrayed me, and he laughed all the way to a small cafe. I found myself conflicted as I sat there with him; on the one hand, I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, so I could complete my task without interference, and more than that; to complete it without injuring anyone.

On the other though, I found that I didn't want him to leave. I'd become so used to his continual presence, that a part of me wanted him to just stay by my side the whole journey. I frowned and beat my spoon against the side of the table to try and clear the thought away. My goal was my burden alone; I was the one who was sent back to change the future. It would be unfair to drag someone into changing something they'd never really live to see the full effects of afterwards.

The rest of the day went pretty fast. He told me he'd wait around until my pokémon were healed, and then take off sometime after that. It got to about fifteen hundred hours before I could collect my pokémon, and he still stayed by my side as I collected them, offering small words of wisdom that I didn't fully hear, but somehow managed to absorb regardless.

It was only really when we reached the outskirts of town that it managed to sink in that he was leaving, and that I was going to be on my own for a while. I hadn't expected to feel such a way, but I couldn't help but feel like I was suddenly becoming alone and being dropped into a bottomless void, with only myself to rely on.

He plucked a poké ball from his belt and tossed it hand-to-hand. "Hey, don't pull any faces!" he told me, noticing my stoicism. "I'll be back before you know it, stronger than ever!" He flexed his muscles and I had to laugh. "Hey, don't be laughing; all those boulders I'll be moving around in the Cluster will mean I'll come back, and _you'll_ be the one with smaller muscles."

I blinked and looked at myself, then to him. I'd never actually considered that I was more muscular than him. He was tall and lean, and in shape from the years of travelling. I was a bit smaller in height, though I did have more muscle mass than him. While he had constant travelling keeping him in shape, I forever had drills, which were often running around carrying a fifteen-kilo pack on my back. I supposed, given that, I would have been more muscular than him.

I laughed. "Doesn't matter. You still won't be able to bench-press a cleffa."

He laughed and shook his head. "Just you watch. I'll be able to _juggle_ them when I come back." He tossed the ball up underhand, and I winced as bright light filtered through. Leif appeared with a colossal roar, and quite happily snuggled up to Ayd and nearly knocked him flying.

"Why didn't you use him to fly us over to Rustboro?" I asked, folding my arms and looking up at the tropical dinosaur. He looked back down at me, the biggest grin I could imagine possible on a giant flying reptile's face. "We'd have had more room."

Ayd reached up and patted Leif's neck. "I only use him for long-distance flying. Irenui's a good flyer, but doesn't have the stamina to fly for more than ten hours at a time." He looked up at Leif's face and shared a grin. "It's about a three-day flight to Pacifidlog from here, and Leif can fly for about a day straight, then only needs to rest for a few hours afterwards. With him, it'll take me about five days to get there, rather than about fourteen with Irenui."

I nodded. It made sense, and it was his decision after all. He began to pat his pockets, checking to make sure he had everything before he looked like he was about to say goodbye.

I smirked and reached around to put a hand in my pack. "Forgetting something?" I asked.

He blinked and looked completely lost before I produced his phone, and held it out for him. He stared at it a moment, seeing the short, silver antennae and additional fixtures to it. He took it slowly from my hand and analysed it like it was an antique vase, prone to shatter at any given moment. "Dude... what on earth?"

I grinned. "I fixed up your phone for you." He looked at me, brows nearly in his hairline, and I folded my arms smugly. "Believe it or not, I haven't wasted the years before I was a trainer." I nodded to his phone, which he was still clutching tightly. "I modified it a bit for you. You'll be able to get signal in a lot more places than before, as well as in caves." I shrugged slightly. "Guess you could say it's got the makings of a satellite phone."

He looked at me, face blank a moment before he laughed and put it back into his pocket. "Dude, two things; _how_ did you get that from me without me knowing, and _why_ do you know this sort of thing?"

I grinned. I'd bribed Loki for the first part – he was a brilliant, stealthy thief, and for the latter, I'd learnt it as I grew up.

Not that I was going to reveal either detail.

"Tricks of the trade," I told him, unable to remove my grin. "Now at least you won't be disappearing off the face of the earth for a month or two."

He laughed again, and I saw genuine amusement in his face. "You'll have to teach me those tricks sometime. Though, you're going to regret this," he warned me. "You'll be able to get my random texts and calls from anywhere, even in a cave. You're so doomed."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Let's hope you get trapped somewhere deep enough you don't get signal."

He laughed. "I'll be back before you know it," he told me. Suddenly he gave me a hug, and I froze, not knowing what to do. He chuckled at my reaction and leapt on Leif quickly afterwards, telling me to make sure I had a great amount of badges on me when we next met before his tropical dinosaur took to the sky.

I watched him leave, feeling a strange pang of loneliness. Regardless, I shook my head and made my way back into Rustboro, knowing there was something I wanted before I left.

* * *

All around the city was showing signs of the evening creeping up. People were bustling about, returning home from work, and the shops were beginning to shut. I cursed and made my way towards my destination faster, eager to get there before it shut.

Finally I reached a weapons shop I'd seen a few days before. I didn't want to go there with Adryan nearby, but I also wanted some form of protection on my journey. The whole way, I'd felt strange without a gun by my side and a knife just in case. I didn't know what his reaction to me buying them would be, but I didn't want to risk offending him.

I walked into the shop, and grit my teeth at the annoying chime of bells above the door. It reminded me of chimecho haunting dark nights, and I managed to contain myself from freaking out at the sound.

I browsed quickly and knew what I wanted instantly. Body armour, a gun, enough ammunition to last me a while, and a knife or two to keep on my person. I only had one knife so far; a small pocket one that was only good for skinning animals. I needed something that would do damage if my pokémon weren't available.

I walked up to the counter and managed to grab the cashier's attention. He was a gruff man, with a thick black moustache and a five o'clock shadow, and I couldn't help but think he had more hair on his face than he did his head. He wore only a white tank-top and black slacks, and I wished he'd decided to wear longer sleeves. Thick, coarse black hair grew from the tops of his arms and his shoulders both, and I wondered whether he was distantly related to an ursaring – if it were at all possible.

I nodded at him. "Do you require a licence to hold a gun in Hoenn?" I asked, knowing that some places wanted people registered to hold weaponry. I didn't fully understand it myself, seeing as it meant people could better defend themselves from pokémon – though I suppose people could decided to go around shooting. I noticed he looked at me as if I were a complete fool, and improvised as best I could. "I've just got to Hoenn from..." I stopped, wondering what was the name of that lawless land? It had fallen so quickly in my time, and the main countries had done almost nothing to help it, as they were too busy fighting each other.

"Orre!" I exclaimed, and flushed as he gave me a dirty look. "Sorry, phased out for a moment then," I excused myself. "When I came over, they took my weapons from me when I entered, and wouldn't let me have them back."

He looked me over once, though seemed to accept my story as true. "Yeah, yer need a licence 'ere," he said gruffly, and I had to wonder if he purposely played up to the stereotype of weapon-wielding idiot. "Takes 'bout three weeks fer it to clear, s'long as yer got a clean criminal record and 'nuff cash."

I pulled a face. I had neither. "Alright," I said, and scanned the room quickly. I nodded towards a hunting knife on display – a cheap, iron blade that would no doubt rust extremely quickly. "How much is that?" I asked, attempting to get a feel for his prices.

He snorted a ball of phlegm and swallowed, and I felt the urge to gag then and there. "Thirteen 'undred poké."

I blinked, dumbfounded. He was charging how much? My brain couldn't work past it. Thankfully I managed to gather myself enough to begin bartering with him. "It's worth seven hundred at most," I said, having a rough feel for currency values.

He snorted at me. "Don't care what it's _worth_, I'm charging thirteen 'undred for it." He leant heavily on the counter and glared at me. "So yer buyin' it or not?"

Indignant rage boiled through me. "I'll pass," I said, calmly as I could. I turned around and left the store as normally as I could, refusing to let him see he'd angered me. The one thing I'd had drilled into me all my life was to always treat everyone with the respect they deserved, regardless of whether they knew it or not. I followed it to the best I could, and expected the same from everyone else. The ill-fated machop's trainer had irked me, which was why I retaliated against him, though this shop owner had annoyed me on another level.

I stalked away from his shop and formulated a plan in my head as I moved back through town. I'd make sure to sort him out with the respect he deserved very quickly.I cursed as I realised one flaw in my plan: it needed to be executed at night. Which meant I needed somewhere to stay, and preferably somewhere which wouldn't charge me.

It was about that time that my phone warbled a digital tune, shocking me out of my thoughts. I flipped it open and glared at the screen, as if it were to blame for everything in the shop. What I found was a completely random message from Ayd, and the sheer weirdness of it meant that I never did once forget it.

_'A wingull just shat on me and Leif both. Fml.'_

I burst out laughing then and there, not caring if people heard me, or about the looks they gave me. I had no idea what 'fml' meant, but the message was just so perfectly... _Adryan_. I grinned and placed the phone back into my pocket, realising with a hint of both humour and worry that he'd kept up his promise of sending me random texts._  
_

I'd been walking for a solid twenty minutes before I found myself outside the gym once more, and wondered how exactly I'd got there.

I shook my head and was about to turn around before I heard a woman curse as a metallic jangle hit the floor. I spun around, thinking the worst, until I saw Roxanne bending over and picking her keys back up from the floor. I smiled to myself and decided to see if I could get some company out of her. Besides, I wanted to find out exactly how a rock specialist was adapted, and wondered if she could provide the information for me, or at least tell me the proper names for them.

"Need a hand?" I called out an offer, and noticed as she jump slightly and looked ready to attack. She spun around and saw me approach, and I couldn't help but smile as she dropped her guard, though still kept herself set defensively. At least she knew how to defend herself.

"I'm okay thanks," she said, shaking her head and locking the gym as she spoke. She stopped and looked at me, her eyes narrowing. "Weren't you with your friend earlier?"

I shrugged, and kept my distance from her, trying my best to make sure I didn't provoke an attack. "Ayd's left for the Origin Cluster," I informed her nonchalantly. "I'm just carrying on with my travels. I wouldn't stand a chance in there, apparently."

She shook her head. "You wouldn't," she told me. "Even the Elite Four struggle in there sometimes."

I nodded. "Only trainers with seventy-five badges or more are allowed in, right?" She seemed surprised that I knew that, and I couldn't help but smile. "A true test of survival skills." I chuckled scornfully. "Pity not many people seem to have any that are halfway decent."

She stared at me a moment, and I could see the gears working in her mind. She asked me to confirm my name, and when I did, it was like a light bulb shone above her head.

"I've heard about you," she told me, still standing in front of her gym. She smiled at me, though I could tell she still wasn't sure what I was doing there. Then again, how many trainers did go back to talk to the gym leader with honourable intentions? Especially if they had lost in a battle. "You were talking about conscription with professor Birch, weren't you?"

I nodded reflexively. "Yeah, that way people will know just exactly how harsh the world can be, and maybe not be completely dropped in it when they become a trainer." I stopped as her words finally hit my brain. "Wait, how do you know about that?"

She laughed to herself. "There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that trainers don't know about. You think every registered trainer is just let off into the wilderness?" She shook her head at her own question. "Whoever registers the trainer – mostly always professor Birch – will then proceed to send out an e-mail or ring each of the gym leaders of the region. We're given a list of names of every trainer that registers, and we have to check it off if and when that trainer comes into our gym. That way, we can keep track of them, and know they're still alive." She seemed to catch my puzzled look, and smiled. "If no gym leader has heard of the trainer within a month, and there's been no attempt for a contest by the trainer, then they're registered as a missing person. More often than not, they turn up a week or two later, having been lost in the wilds, but there's always the odd one or two that have died in the first few weeks."

I nodded. "I see."

"It's why I support your idea," she told me, taking me aback. She laughed at my shocked look and skipped up beside me. I could tell she hadn't fully let her guard down, though she seemed happy enough to start teaching again. "Too many trainers die each year because they don't know how to start a fire, what foods they can and can't eat, or just don't know the signs of a pokémon's nest."

"Or try to capture a pokémon that's far too strong?" I guessed. She nodded solemnly, biting her bottom lip. I never considered my passing words would have so much effect on professor Birch, though thought nothing of it. Roxanne didn't seem too happy with the way the conversation had gone, so I opted to change it around. "So how exactly are rock specialists adapted?" I asked, unable to form anything but a blunt question.

She looked at me, surprised, and could only blink dumbly at me for a moment. "How..." she started cautiously, "do you know about that?"

I grinned at her. "I'm smarter than I look." She didn't seemed fully convinced, so I opted to tell her mine and Ayd's theory. "One of my parents or grandparents were ice specialists," I told her, and she seemed more relaxed at the revelation. "I'm not sure who though, because they're all dead," I stated matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry," she said reflexively.

I shrugged. "Don't be. Never knew them, and I doubt I'm the only one. Though," I frowned and folded my arms, thinking hard. "I don't actually know how _I'm_ adapted... it's all theories at the moment."

She giggled and shook her head at me, sending her hair cascading over her shoulders. "Then I'm not about to suddenly tell you about rock adaptation. What's the point in teaching if I don't learn something in return?"

My mouth dropped open ever-so-slightly. "How about I tell you what I'm theorising?" I offered. "And I'll even buy you a drink, so that you're _getting_ something in return."

She laughed and nodded. "You've twisted my arm," she told me, grinning. "Come on, I'll show you a nice place."

I went along with her as she led me to one of Rustboro's more secluded bars. Along the way she repeated stories of her journey to me, and I occasionally asked about small details of them, such as places she liked the best, and where her fondest memories were. She happily complied, filling me with information all the way. Apparently, like most Hoenn trainers, she had started off her own journey with a mudkip. She explained how even though she was now a rock pokémon gym leader, she still liked training other pokémon on her journey. Though seeing as she came from a line of rock specialists, it was easier for her to train and command her specialist type, and she admitted she did always have a passion for rock pokémon – she merely wanted to experience as much as she could.

She also told me more about her pokémon. Apparently the lileep I battled was named Petra, and the nosepass was Moai. Both were supposedly offspring of her older pokémon, and apparently Moai was the offspring of her first captured rock pokémon – a nosepass that was now a probopass, and named Shale.

The bar she led me to was a nice place, and populated by only a few people. It was quite dark inside, and lit up by lights that were held on strings and attached to the walls, making it look like the walls were made out of the starry skies.

I sat on a stool opposite Roxanne and gave her the drink she'd ordered, managing to snap her out of her staring fit at the lights.

"I love this place," she whispered to me. "It's so nice to come to a bar without there being masses of people hovering about."

"I know the feeling," I told her, smiling into my own drink. "Rustboro's too crowded: I'm not used to it."

She looked instantly interested. "How so?"

"I grew up in and around army barracks," I explained to her, and thankfully she didn't gasp in horror, only remaining in rapt, silent interest. "There were never more than a few hundred of us in one camp, and it was pretty spacious." I grinned and remembered our earlier battle. "It's probably why I was constantly on the attack earlier; I'm used to just pointing and shooting. I wasn't one that was meant to think of strategies, I was just meant to follow orders to the letter."

She nodded and begun to play with her hair. "That makes sense," she said. "Though does that mean you had to spend each day doing insane drills at insane hours?"

I laughed. "Pretty much. Up before oh-five hundred to run courses that even machoke would find exhausting." I leant forwards and tensed my muscles slightly, pulling in her attention more. "But, it paid off."

She nodded and made a small grunt, staring in amazement before she snapped back to attention and blushed heavily. "So, uh, you wanted to know about rock adaptation?" she said quickly, trying to regain herself. "What about it do you want to know?"

I shrugged. "Whatever there is to know. I've gathered that all specialists can control the same-affinity pokémon with greater ease, but I mostly want to know about the human changes. Like how ice ones feel the cold less, and the heat more." I smiled, and left the rest of my thoughts unspoken. It meant if I encountered a specialist who needed putting down, I'd know what weaknesses to exploit.

She lifted a brow at me. "So are you going to be asking every gym leader this?"

I shrugged. I hadn't considered it, though it did seem like a good idea. "Maybe," I said, "though I think not in the same way as this." I grinned at her look of interest. "I'd say you're a... _special case."_

She laughed and slapped me on the arm. I managed to not wince, and gathered by her smile, she didn't realise just how much her slaps _hurt!_ I began to think that maybe insane strength was part of her adaptation.

"'Special case,'" she repeated with a smile and a fake-frown. "We've got tougher skin," she explained, swirling her drink with a straw. "While it's still not enough to fend off blades or anything that can puncture a normal human's skin, it's resilient enough to not break when we fall over, or the like. Our bones are also stronger, as are our teeth."

I nodded. Bones and teeth, after all, were made from many minerals. Rocks were minerals too, so it made sense that they would become tougher. In the base of my brain, the first cogs started turning about how logical the adaptations were.

"We're more resilient to changes in temperature," she explained further. "And also don't really suffer as badly as you did in sandstorms. Though we do have our fair share of weakness too," she admitted, and I noticed she began twirling her hair around a finger. "Our joints are more brittle than most people's, and they can break a bit easier. We're also more prone to joint-based illnesses because of such, like arthritis. Most of us sink like stones in water too," she joked, and I laughed along, regardless of how corny it was.

I smiled at her. "You really enjoy teaching, don't you?" She looked blank a moment, and I couldn't help but smile. "Your face seems to light up whenever you're explaining anything."

She giggled and blushed a dark shade of red. She said nothing and quickly focused on her drink, finishing it as quickly as she could. "Want another?" she offered, already beginning to stand.

I shook my head at her, one hand reaching down to a pocket. "I offered to buy _you_ a drink," I protested.

She leant forwards and placed her hand on my arm. "And you did. And now, if I'm not mistaken, it's my round." I grinned as I noticed that her hand moved up my arm as she spoke, and made a show of letting her have her own way.

She grinned and walked towards the bar, bobbing her head to the dull music in the background. I couldn't help but notice that even as she stood there, she'd shoot the occasional glance backwards towards me, and turn a shade of pink when she caught my eyes.

I grinned to myself. At least I'd managed to solve the problem of finding a place to stay.


	16. The Petalburg Woods

_**Pokémon**_

**_Regret_  
**

**The Petalburg Woods**

**

* * *

**

_Natural laws have no pity _~ Lazarus Long

**-O-O-O-**

_"Caves and forests are a natural part of our ecosystem. We can't just go and destroy them because a few people each year get killed within them. Over two hundred people each year are killed in the forests - only sixty-three percent of them are trainers. Every year, twenty-two thousand people are killed in hit and run accidents. So does that mean we're going to destroy cars too?_

_Of course not. Because cars help everyone in their daily lives. The forests are no more than large hinderances, only patrolled by someone with pokemon, or someone foolish enough to walk into them._

_But what happens when we destroy the forests? All the creatures native to them will begin to move elsewhere, looking for new territory to claim. Don't you think it's better to keep predators away in the forests, rather than inviting them into the towns? Can you imagine your trip to work each day if the railway station had a beedrill nest in it? What if a sceptile claims that an office building is its new territory, and kills everyone that tries to go to work?_

_It's safer to keep the forests and caves as they are. Sure, a few hundred people might die each year, but really, isn't that better than the alternative of having whole towns wiped out by our own actions?"_

_- _Aaron Mattheis, 45th Sinnoh League Champion, Sinnoh Elite Four member 3007-3010. _(Speaking in regards to proposed plans to destroy Eterna forest due to rising number of trainer deaths, April 16th, 3009)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The next morning, I was near enough skipping down the streets of Rustboro. Roxanne had eventually kicked me out of her house around oh-three hundred, claiming that she had an important meeting, and that with me around, she wasn't going to get any sleep.

Ego: one, need for sleep: zero.

She was certain to tell me before I left that I had to meet her again the next time I was in Rustboro, I had to meet up with her once more, as she supposedly didn't want a reputation of engaging in one-nighters. It was quite amazing how fearsome she could look even when only wearing a bright blue, pikachu-print dressing gown. I nodded, gave her my number and even got a kiss goodbye before I left, not wanting to anger the woman.

After all, she hit _hard_.

It worked out well regardless, as I was fully sure on my plans of revenge on the arrogant weapon owner's shop. I made my way back towards it and waited across the street from it, debilitating my plan. Once I was certain, I let out Loki from his poké ball, and waited for him to start hissing at me.

Instead he glanced around, seemingly happy to be let out in darkness for once. He seemed to forget all about being on the offensive, and more on just enjoying the fact he was let out in his element. He didn't even make a move to attack me when I bent down beside him and scratched behind his ears.

"I need your help again Loki," I told him, keeping my voice in a low whisper. He replied eagerly, seemingly understanding my words. It was most likely more that he understood whenever I spoke to him in such low tones, he was getting to be evil and be rewarded for it. "Remember how I got you to steal Adryan's phone?" He nodded eagerly at that. I think it was only because he remembered the rewards, but his eagerness consoled me. "I need you to do something similar here," I explained to him. I nodded for him to follow me, and where I walked calmly through the darkness, he skulked like a predator of the night. In fact, I was half expecting him to transform into a bat and flutter away, given the noises he was making, and the way he walked around.

We reached the store and I stood outside the window. He stopped by my side and made little protest as I lifted him up gently and held him close, my arm hooked around him like I was carrying a small child. "I need you to sneak in there," I whispered conspiringly to him. "When you're in there, destroy everything that looks like that." I pointed to the security camera watching the cash till, and made sure he knew what I was talking about before I adjusted him in my grip. "After you've done that," I whispered to him. "I want you to destroy that." I pointed to the alarm console held up near the door, and instructed Loki to do it well enough that there was no noise. I made it clear to him that if he destroyed too much, or if he set off any alarms, he wouldn't be getting any rewards.

He nodded eagerly when I placed him on the ground. He cackled once and rubbed his hands together gleefully before he skulked over to a large shadow and began to walk through the wall. I watched in awe as he phased completely through the wall and walked into the shop, and made quick work of the security cameras I could see. He snuck off into the back rooms and no doubt destroyed any cameras in there too before he crept back into the room and slashed the alarm pad code, screeching happily as he noticed no sounds go off.

I laughed at him and walked towards the door. I pointed at the lock barring me access, and he gleefully jumped up and smashed it with a fist. I walked in, and both myself and Loki growled at the annoying chime of bells above the door. Regardless I picked Loki up and praised him, promising him a good reward when we left the shop. It took a moment of explaining the concept of later to him – a process made harder as he kept jumping up my leg like an excited child, though he seemed to quickly get the message.

With the trickster by my side, we made quick work in the shop. I told him he didn't have to be careful, just as long as he didn't make too much noise, and made sure no one saw him. It was like telling a kid he could eat all the sweets he wanted. His face lit up in sheer delight and soon enough whole stands of gloves and helmets were being slung to the floor – amazingly in near silence.

I laughed at his antics and turned myself around. I picked up a small, titanium flip knife and hid it within my boot, knowing that while it wasn't one of the sharpest blades there could be, it was good in an emergency, and wouldn't cut my feet or be affected by the harsh conditions I would no doubt be stepping in. I stalked round the shop and found a brilliant blade; eight inches of high carbon stainless steel with a micarta handle. It would be able to resist almost any punishment the weather threw at it, and would still have enough sharpness to pierce the hide of a tauros. I grabbed it and quickly found its sheath and secured it tightly to my hip.

Behind me I heard Loki enjoying himself, and turned around to find him looking at me, wearing an oversized army helmet and with a large green vest covering him completely. I couldn't help but laugh at him, amazed that something that acted so evil could at the same time be so cute.

I decided against the body armours within the shop; most of them were too bulky and cumbersome. If I were to wear one, it would be too obvious, and would be more troublesome than useful. I moved onto the back of the shop, and decided quickly on one of the latest model desert eagles. I found the holster for it as quickly as I could and strapped it to my right thigh. The ammunition wasn't hard to find, and I took about a tenth of his stock, which would be more than enough to reload the gun at least forty times.

Round the back of the shop I found a thin, green jacket that was designed perfectly to cover any weapons hidden up to a person's hip. I snatched it and put it on, happy that it mange to cover my newly-acquired knife. The gun was harder to hide, but I managed to find a holster for it that was the same colour as my bottoms. It was still quite noticeable, but it was enough for people not to notice instantly. If it came to it, I could quite easily hide it in my backpack.

I was just about to leave when I caught sight of a glowing gem in the back of the shop. I found myself entranced by it, and couldn't help but stop and stare for a moment. It was a bright amber rock that was almost completely transparent, and it seemed as if there were a constant flame flickering within. I pressed my hand to it and was amazed by how warm it felt. Nothing on my person was good enough reward for Loki, I decided, and so snatched the gem and hid it away. I moved back into the main part and called him over to smash open the safe in the back, though left without taking any money. I wanted to teach the man a lesson, not ruin him. Regardless, I felt that having any money would be useless, given my knowledge that it in fact would be completely worthless within a decade.

I motioned for Loki to leave with me, and carefully shut the door behind me. I took off running for a few streets, fully aware my trickster was happily following me, cackling his tiny demonic head off the whole while. I stopped near Rustboro's forest borders, hunched over and panted for my breath.

I know robbing the store may seem overkill to most, but I wanted to teach the man a lesson. And at the time, it made perfect sense to me. When I look back, I realise it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, and I was actually completely in the wrong for ever doing it. But what I took saved my life enough times to wash away any guilt I would ever feel.

As I recovered my breath, Loki was chatting happily to himself, leaping about whilst making a set of delighted sounds. I don't think he could believe he found a human that was letting him embrace being the evil little creature he wanted to be, rather than being controlled at every slight attempt.

"Loki," I breathed, still panting, snapping his attention towards me. I plucked the strange fire gem out of my pocket and smiled as it lit up brilliantly in his eyes. I could see that he was near enough drooling at the sight of it alone, and grinned to myself. "Good boy," I said, and tossed him the gem.

He shrieked like it was Christmas. He caught the gem in his hands and held it above his head, racing around parading it like a trophy for a good moment. He stopped and licked his lips, staring at the gem with ravenous hunger. He bit into it delightedly, then stopped and began flailing around like his mouth was on fire. He calmed down, breathed, and then repeated the process again and again until the gem was completely consumed.

He was always a lunatic.

I recalled him back into his ball and made way towards the forest itself, wondering whether I should attempt it in the dark hours before dawn. Along the way I weighed up the pros and cons of going into there at such an hour; all the nocturnal pokémon would be beginning to go back to their nests, which meant I'd be mostly free from most bugs and the likes of murkrow. On the other hand, there would be a few pokémon waking up from the night and beginning to hunt, or even those that spent all the daylight hours awake. The main things I would have to look out for would be beedrill and vespiquen, though possibly kecleon and sceptile if I was truly unlucky.

The forest approached quickly, and I found myself stopping before it a moment. The trees stretched up to the heavens, and I was amazed that there was no guard post or the like making sure to protect people. It was almost like the people of Rustboro had decided that the three-mile distance between them and the forest would make sure that the pokémon within wouldn't attack them.

Day was beginning to break over the forest, covering the treetops with a brilliant amber shine. I checked my watch and realised it was just approaching oh-five hundred, and couldn't help but smile to myself. Even with an eighty year difference, the sun's cycle remained the same. It was near enough my only stability in such a strange world.

The main entrance I could see to the forest seemed to be a winding dirt path, where it looked like someone had gone through the effort of hacking down as much of the undergrowth as possible. However, the forest seemed to have tried to reclaim the path with time, and I could see the frayed and jagged edges of the tunnel-like path through all the plants. It cast a looming dark glare over the entrance, and I couldn't help but realise that my assumptions of time were completely wrong. It looked like it was going to be a permanent form of night within the forest, and I'd be risking running into anything and everything within.

Once I managed to pass the initial path into the woods, I was amazed by it's rather spacious interior. It opened up like a natural city, where the trees were the buildings, and the large growths of bushes, thorns and nettles acted as natural fences and dead-end alleyways. However, the large size was rather unnerving, given that the forest was nothing more than a natural maze. If it were smaller, I could find my way around quicker, but in the large expanses, it meant I could wander around for longer periods of time without ever actually realising I was traversing in circles.

A few feet into the forest, I couldn't help but shudder and pull my jacket tighter around myself. It was amazingly cold within the forest, and there was a thin layer of frost over the grass and a number of plants that grew from floor-height. I gathered that it had to be because there was almost no source of sunlight until roughly midday, given that plants still grew on the forest floor.

I shuddered and rubbed my arms. I was thankful I'd stolen the jacket when I did, considering that the only other one I owned was a great deal thicker. I knew that unless it got a lot colder within the forest, I wasn't likely to be wearing it. I'd rather be a little cold than overheated.

It was cold, dark and a giant natural maze. It put me on edge instantly, and I shrieked as a dustox fluttered past me, not bothered by my presence in the slightest. I stood for a moment, attempting to capture my breath, only slightly aware that my hand had dropped down instantly to my knife. I took a deep breath and attempted to calm myself, though clutched a poké ball tight in my hand. I called out Xander as quickly as I could, and took comfort in his appearance.

He croaked at me, unbothered by the change in scenery. The underside of his stomach was lined with a small number of light wounds that I could tell were going to make scars. I noticed that his front legs were slightly longer than before, and I saw that he seemed to be forming a neck between his head and body.

I picked him up and praised him again for his performance in the gym, letting his close presence calm down my racing heart. He seemed to notice that my heart was racing a marathon and fidgeted in my grip, looking around for any potential threat. I reassured him that there was no immediate threat, merely than I wanted his company.

I surprised myself when I realised how true it actually was.

He seemed to accept this answer, and he wore something that looked like a goofy grin on his face. I further told him to be wary, and warned him that most of the creatures within the forest were strong against him. It was one of my original reasons against wanting a lotad to start off with; they had an incredible number of weaknesses to opposing natures. Not only that, but I knew how many of their weak points could be exploited easily.

But by the time I'd reached that forest, I'd begun to see that it wasn't merely the mechanics and threat-assessments that defined everything. Regardless of his capabilities, I knew Xander was a pokémon that tried his hardest in battle, despite any disadvantages he may have had – which I noticed heavily in his sparring with Hale. It was amazing that I'd seen results the day after; his dodging capabilities were a lot better, and he was able to attack quicker and more accurately at shorter notices. He tried his hardest no matter what, and I realised that it was my duty as his trainer not only to cover up his weaknesses, but to help him improve himself. Moreover, it wasn't just my duty, I owed it to him for all the effort he put in to help me.

I placed him back on the floor, well aware that with him waddling along beside me, I'd be increasing my travelling time by a fair amount. But surprisingly, it didn't bother me. I was more than content to embrace his presence, and knew that I could use the extra time to begin to plan things over in my head. I wasn't being told what to do anymore, I was having to think up plans and strategies all on my own, all the time. It was new, foreign and infinitely scarier than I would have thought.

Though for some odd reason, having Xander nearby made it all seem better.

I did notice, almost for the first time, that he seemed to be content to leave every other pokémon alone, and would only shoot off warning growls at something that came too close. It was good, though it did seem like he was reluctant to attack unless provoked. I was seeing what Adryan had told me play out before my eyes; he was only ready to attack when something looked like it was ready to. Otherwise he may as well have had his back constantly to them, given the lack of will to battle he possessed.

I knew I needed to train it out of him. The only problem was that I didn't truly know how to. The first idea I had was to just leave him on his own for a bit in the forest, and let him defend himself against the wild creatures. Though I quickly reconsidered, remembering his high disadvantage against everything within the forest, and the fact that many of the creatures could poison any other living creature. I didn't have much in the way of curing poison, and I knew only the most basic field-methods for flushing it out of someone's system. The only problem would be that if it did work, the person would sweat buckets, and then would often lose control of their bowels as they detoxed. Unfortunately, it was very similar to the symptoms of irreversible poisoning, so I wouldn't know whether he was cured or not until he died or became well again. And honestly, I didn't want to risk letting him die. I knew it was because it would hamper by original plans, but I think somewhere, on some level, I was attached to the little creature.

I was walking about one step for every ten I would normally as I dawdled down to Xander's pace. It let me evaluate the conditions I was travelling through, and gave me some extra time to think things over. I estimated then that it would take over a week for me to traverse the forest, if I made good time. I remembered back to Jennifer's words, and how I had less than a year to change everything round. It was March at that time, which I gathered meant I had until the literal end of the year.

That realisation made me want to give up then and there. It was only three months into the year, and yet the Hoenn spring was too hot for me! I knew I would be suffering by the advent of summer, and hoped that I would have an ice pokémon by such a time, if only so it could constantly pepper me with blasts of chilly wind.

I still couldn't figure out what the largest reason for the world's destruction was. I knew there were a number of things that lead to the overall downfall, but I had no idea whether it was a load of small things, or one large thing. For all I could remember, it could have happened in another country, and I'd completely miss it whilst out in Hoenn!

I decided then and there I needed a psychic. I supposedly wouldn't receive any brain damage if I had my pokémon only share images and speak with me. I made the assumption that sharing images meant I could share memories. I theorised that if I had a pokémon use its clairvoyance, and then compare it to my memories of the future, it may be able to help me pinpoint what would actually happen. Even if it couldn't tell me what happens, by some silly loophole that explaining the future was sharing the pokémon's abilities, I could simply have it lead me to help, rather than explain it to me. It meant I needed a psychic with the power the likes of alazkazam, hypno or a xatu.

One thing was for certain though: I'd never go near one of the demon gardevoirs.

I'd been walking with Xander in the forest for just over an hour before I decided to stop. Xander groaned near my feet, discontent with the sudden stop in motion. The grass had got higher, nearly covering him completely, and there were several trees that loomed over us both. It separated into a few separate paths, and I honestly wasn't too sure which path to take. I stopped both to collect my bearings, and to begin training my two creatures. I'd noticed heavily that Xander wasn't attacking anything, and got the feeling that it would eventually lead to our downfall. Many of the bugs could slow us down and cocoon us with their silk, and if he was weary of attacking anything, we could end up a bug's next meal.

On the other hand, if I relied on Loki too much, he could have become too much to handle. It was a decision I had to make, and in the clarity of it all, chose a hidden third option: to capture a new pokémon.

I reasoned that I could catch one of the many infant wurmple that nested within the woods. I knew their full life cycles took ten months to mature into dustox or beautifly, and as an addition, knew that the wurmple themselves only grew out of the defenceless larval stage at around three months of age. It meant that if I caught one old enough, it could mature extremely quickly, and I could use the deadly poisons it naturally produced to my advantage.

At least, that was the original plan.

I released Loki in a flash of light, and noticed with a small hint of pride that he didn't react in his usual way to Xander or myself. Instead he delighted in being let out, and stood before me calmly. I wasn't fooled though, even then. I knew that it could all be a trick, and the moment I upset him, he'd revert back to a feral state. Regardless, I played along, if only to appease him.

"Anything but Xander comes too close, feel free to kill it," I told him, smiling to myself at his open laugh of delight. I turned to the lotad and crouched before him. "But you need to make sure pokémon don't really get close enough to attack in the first place. You need to work on your battle moral: you're too hesitant to attack."

I swung my arms by my side as I stood up and decided then and there what the plan of action would become. I set up drills for both my pokémon, and they would go through them daily. They both had three a day, focusing on different aspects, and I made sure to introduce them as we made way through the forest. It was the only way I knew I would be able to train my pokémon effectively – I had grown up in the army, drills were second nature to me. I could easily pass the expertise onto my pokémon, given that they gave the time and effort needed.

The strangest thing was implementing a form of battle strategy into my plans. While straight-out attacking was still a strategy, it obviously wasn't going to get me far. I had Loki run drills on using the strange flashes of light he had used on Siren's back – the very same attack that had fish leaping onto dry land and attempting to swim on it. I needed them to become more proficient at everything before I could figure out how to use it.

We spent a good few days just in the first part of the forest, with me implementing the training regime into them. Every day at oh-nine hundred, fourteen hundred and nineteen hundred, I made them train for two hours. It slowed our progress through the forest, but they quickly picked up on the ideas I had for them.

I also had to teach them how to take watch in the wilds. The first night, I stayed up the whole time, explaining everything I could to them. I took both watches, though one with Loki and one with Xander. The next day, I was ready to drop the whole day, after having gone over forty-eight without sleep, though persevered through regardless. That night, I was practically dead whilst I slept, and paid no regard as to whether I woke up the next morning or not – I was simply that tired. Thankfully though, it seemed Xander had understood the concept of taking watch, and judging by the small amounts of scrapes over him and Loki, I gathered he had managed to convince the ghost to take watch.

I was proud of them both.

The nights in the forest were horrible times though. Around eighteen hundred hours every day, the forest would start to drop in temperature, and at twenty-two hundred hours, you could see frost beginning to form on the grass and tree leaves. I woke up a few times with one of my pokémon cuddled up to me, the other standing watch somewhere nearby. It was a strange experience, and even though I freaked out the first time it happened – I woke up in the middle of a nightmare that I had a zubat attached to my stomach, draining my blood and found Loki cuddled up to me when I woke – I strangely warmed to the idea instantly.

Around the fourth day though, my spirits rapidly began to decline in our trek. Everything blurred into one long, endless vision of tree, bush, tree, grass in a loop, and I was certain the days and nights were getting shorter and shorter. My internal clock had been thrown to the wind by the strange constant near-darkness of the forest, and the continual lay-down of frost meant that I often awoke shivering and cold, even when wrapped up tightly in a sleeping bag.

I looked up to the canopy and strained to see any sunlight above. I checked my watch and even though it told me it was midday, I could scarcely believe it. "People must lose their minds in here," I whispered more to myself, but Loki answered me with small chatter. Not knowing where you were, let alone what time of day it was must have driven so many people mad. I briefly wondered just how many people died in those very woods on a yearly basis, though quickly found my train of thought brought to an abrupt, crash of a halt as Loki screeched happily and chased a small buneary through the grass.

I'd taken to alternating who I walked with whilst we progressed through the forest. I'd found a stream which was meant to lead into the Petalburg reservoirs, so I knew if I followed it south, I would eventually hit the end of the woods I needed. It also meant Xander could swim alongside me at a faster pace when I walked with him. Loki could keep up with me easily otherwise, though he would often run into the stream and splash about like an excited child. He was behaving himself more in the forest than ever, though I put it down to him being able to run free and kill what he liked during the nights. Otherwise I made sure to follow Ayd's advice and provided them with food at set times. It was actually quite amazing how quickly they adjusted to it; by the second day, they both would get hungry at the same times as me, and we would sit down to eat for a bit before we carried on. The forest had plenty of wildlife to eat after all, providing we managed to stay away from territorial bugs.

Once or twice we managed to offend the local wildlife. During practice drills, Xander accidentally hit a beedrill, and we ended up running for our lives from the deadly creatures. Most people seem to think that they can deal with the bugs easily with fire, but even then, I knew precautions had to be made. They were bugs the size of young teenagers, and had foot-long spears on their forelegs. Statistics said they killed at least two-thousand travellers a year, and I was honestly surprised it was so low.

At least in our escape from the bees, we found the stream – we happened to fall straight into it.

I stopped beside Loki and watched as he dove into a pile of leaves like a happy infant. He poked his head out at me and smiled, and I couldn't help but laugh at him. I truly began to wonder then: how was it I ever managed to live in hate and fear of all of such creatures? I'd been ignorant of them all, and found that the new world I was in was truly a blessing in disguise.

I looked at Loki a moment longer and pondered. I knew he could use psychic abilities, given his eerie dead rattata theatre. But every time he had a drill for it, he couldn't do much more than lift a speck of dirt without putting his entire focus into it. I wanted him to be able to pick up things and throw them at foes without a moment's hesitation, though he couldn't do that and focus entirely on the battle. I had silently built up hopes that he could be my know-all psychic for the future, and put all my dreams in him being able to communicate with me and further my plans. I figured that if I did try to communicate with me, it would almost definitely leave me with a brain tumour, or at the very least convince the ghost to eat my brains.

Or something to that effect.

It didn't matter much, as I later found out he couldn't ever develop the ability of precognition.

"We need to capture another pokémon soon," I said to him, absent-mindedly. "I'm not sure what though," I admitted, aware his attention was rapt on me. "Though it means I'll need you to injure it just enough for me to capture it." He seemed to like the idea, given his eager nod and decided to leap about in excitement.

I watched him for a small moment before turning my attention back to our surroundings. The trees seemed to be getting thicker and more densely-spread, and I had a feeling it would lead to a natural dead-end soon enough, or a wild pokémon's territory. I forced my brain to stop at the mad mental images I had flood my senses: everything from sceptile to pinsir were known to stalk forests.

I refused to think anymore on what _could_ be in the forest, and focused instead on what _was_. I glanced down to Loki, and all of a sudden my heart stopped. "Don't move!" I hissed at him, and thankfully he stopped instantly. I raced to his side and pulled him back a step. He looked at me, confused, though I motioned for his quiet. A step in front of him was a small cluster of seeds, each linked by barely visible threads. A trap! It was the only thing it could be.

My mind raced. What could have left it? Was it harmful? Was it safe? I stared at it a moment longer, and all of a sudden memory flooded me.

"Shit!" I hissed, and withdrew another step. The seeds wiggled, and my heart raced within my chest. "Shit, shit, shit!" I hissed, and ran backwards with Loki. He scrambled in my grip, and I hid behind a tree, ducking as low as I could whilst motioning for him to be quiet. It wasn't good! I knew the basics of such a thing: sceptile would leave traps of leech seeds in small clusters just outside their territory. They were connected by invisible threads that lead back to the creature itself. If one was triggered, it would stun its victim and entangle itself around them. The sceptile could then track the victim, as the seeds would suck them dry of life fluids and transfer them to the sceptile itself. I knew it was only dangerous if the seeds had been triggered.

But they were _moving_. I had no idea what that meant! Loki was silent by my side, my thudding heart giving him enough concern to remain quiet.

Distantly, I heard a branch creak as weight landed on it. My ears twitched, as did Loki's, and we waited there with baited breath.

Another.

Then another.

_Shit!_ I hissed at myself, forcing us to be almost one with the dirt. They were getting closer! I was practically inhaling the ground itself, trying to keep calm and hidden. Loki said nothing and didn't move an inch: I gathered by that his pokémon were natively prey to something – perhaps another ghost?

I didn't think much more as the beast jumped into the clearing before us. It leapt from the tress without a sound, and the barest rustle of grass accompanied its landing. It stood as tall as me, though was all green and was a fearsome looking lizard with horrific yellow eyes. Its tail splintered into a dozen natural thorns, all sticking out at the sides to assault any victims. It licked at the air with a forked tongue, tasting it, _tasting us._

It moved to the collection of seeds with stealthy grace. Slowly it bent down and picked them up, turning them over in its grip. It looked, squinted a moment, and then turned.

And saw Loki's footprints.

It leapt up and looked to the sky, unleashing a guttural hiss. My heart raced in my chest, and I heard Loki begin to make a few small sounds. I pressed us further into the dirt, and lay down far enough that my mouth was in the mud. I didn't care. I'd have taken eating mud over dying any day.

Its tongue flickered again. Slowly it turned around, and I saw the large claw on its hind legs, like those of ancient dinosaurs. I winced inwardly as it clicked down on the nearby stones, beating out a small pattern.

_Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap._

I breathed in. Just what was it doing?

It stepped forwards a pace, heading towards us both. It was drawing everything out, like some sadistic monster. I was forced to watch it, breathing as quietly and as rhythmically as I could.

In-out.

_Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap._

In my grip, Loki was breathing at a much more erratic pace.

In-out-in.

_Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap._

My breath caught, and the pattern missed the first two taps. Its tongue flickered in our direction, and my blood froze in my veins. It was mimicking our breathing pattern! It could hear us! It could _taste_ us! It was savouring the feeling of the hunt!

I motioned for Loki to remain quiet and still as I moved as slowly as I could towards my gun. I inched closer, noticing the large lizard was stalking towards us. For every inch I made towards my gun, the sceptile managed three steps.

It was going to beat me!

I couldn't let it know we were there. The grass just covered Loki by a few inches, and myself by a few more, though knew it would be able to see us if it looked close enough. Closer it came, and I was still nowhere near my gun. Closer still, and I could hear it breathing methodically. Another step, and the leaves surrounding its wrists shone a malevolent green. My heart fell once more, knowing what it meant. Leaf blade... a technique learnt by them, which made their leaves strong enough to cut even steel. My poor, squishy body wouldn't stand a chance.

I reached down, and clasped the flap covering my gun.

And the sceptile was in front of us.

My breath caught, and I willed myself not to make any noise. Loki was tense in my grip, and I could feel his erratic heartbeat. It only occurred to me in those moments that Loki wasn't completely a ghost – he was also a creature of darkness. It made me wonder whether or not he was dead already, and the age-old question of whether or not ghost pokémon could die.

It looked like we were going to find out soon.

I scrunched my eyes shut as the lizard bent down, and felt its hot breath on my face. It smelt like acorns and rotting meat, and I fought the urge to vomit. Its tongue flickered the air before us, bringing a small breeze that reminded me of the smell of grass after rainfall.

I refused to die there. It was an all-or-nothing movement. I needed to get my gun as quickly as I could, though was in no way faster than a sceptile. But I had to take the chance!

I gripped my gun.

A twig snapped.

The sceptile screeched.

A pokémon screamed in pain.

My eyes snapped open at the last noise. Loki was still by my side, growling small, feral growls in the direction of the sceptile. I saw it standing over a pokémon I hadn't seen before – a bipedal rabbit that was clutching at its neck, eyes wide in alarm. Blood poured freely between its hands, and the sceptile bent down and licked the blood from its bladed leaves.

I'd seen all I needed to. I grabbed Loki and ran in the other direction, heedless of whether I'd get lost or not.

The rabbit's death screams in the distance told me I made the right choice.

* * *

An hour after breathing in the sweet smell of certain-death, my heart was still racing. Regardless, I carried on as normally as I could. Xander and Loki were going through their drills, and I began to flick through the old and somewhat battered guide I kept in my bag. It told me that Loki shouldn't have been intimidated by the sceptile in the slightest, and should have faced it head-on.

I wondered why, and then read a few paragraphs further in. Apparently pokémon behaved according to what their trainers were feeling at the time. It mentioned that if a trainer was angry, a pokémon would be more violent in its attack, though made a long point of detailing if a trainer showed obvious signs of fear, the pokémon would feed off that fear, and be unable to fight well.

I cursed. Loki didn't fight the sceptile because _I_ was afraid? I had every right to be – I could have easily ended up as the giant lizard's next meal! Loki was the one who was _already_ a ghost! I scowled at the book as if my glare could make it burst into flames. Because I'd freaked and tried to preserve my life, I'd scared Loki.

Well, it wasn't like I was going to walk up to a wild sceptile and slap it in the face.

It seemed that every day I learnt another way in which being a trainer was harder than I had first thought.

I pushed the thought away and drew my torch out of my bag. It was getting fair use in the forest, though only up to a certain point of the night. The first time I'd used it, I ended up having a swarm of dustox, venomoth and mothim all flock towards the powerful light. I couldn't help but remember Ayd's description of it being a miniature sun, and ended up laughing to myself, even as the bugs began to fly around us.

I called my pokémon's names, and they stopped their training to return to my side. Both of them were panting and sagged on their feet – I had the image of them as humans, drenched completely in sweat. They looked up at me though, and despite the obvious exhaustion, they seemed happy. I could relate. Training made me feel better about myself, knowing I was going to be in better shape.

I found it amazing how even after so many years of wanting out of my world, when I finally got it I began to appreciate what it had taught me.

"Keep an eye out for wurmple," I told them both, keeping my voice in a conspiring whisper. "If you see one, make sure you subdue it so I can capture it. But don't kill it!" I added quickly, making sure to stress that point. I fancied my chances with one of those more. They were more common in Hoenn, as the likes of caterpie and weedle were still fully adjusting to Hoenn life and it's predators. In my mind, if I caught something native to Hoenn, it would know how to defend itself against other Hoenn pokémon. I also knew either evolved form of the wurmple could be incredibly useful for me, given their abilities to inflict their enemies with a potent cocktail of illnesses.

I flicked through my pokédex and brought up the file on wurmple. After showing both my pokémon it – and stopping Loki from eating the machine – I was confident my pokémon would be able to do most of the hard work for me.

I nodded for them to walk with me – granted Xander gained a perch on my shoulders. It felt like we were a strange family, despite the differences in species, and the complete language barrier between us. I knew people kept pokémon as pets, and wondered how they could patronise the creatures so. They were amazing little beasts, full of such wondrous personalities and abilities.

I scared myself by realising how quickly I'd fallen in love with pokémon. I'd always feared them, knowing them to be no more than feral beasts. My experiences with them made me wonder if the ones I knew whilst growing up were only as a result of the damned virus that plagued the nations.

I walked along the pathways, listening again for the sounds of the stream. I'd had a vague idea of what direction I'd ran away from the sceptile, so began to double back on myself. After the days within the forest, I'd started to notice small warning signs of pokémon territories, and what pokémon preferred what sorts of environments. The majority of bugs seemed to prefer a large tree, and would have whole colonies built around it. Pokémon like buneary had small warrens near sources of water or food, and I'd even seen a kecleon nest in the largest gatherings of bushes.

I stared skywards and analysed the canopy. It was becoming denser, and I could see the small spots where the sun's rays penetrated through to hit the ground. The closeness of the trees effectively formed a barrier between them, and I was certain I'd only see what was hidden there once I was underneath it.

I forced myself to keep calm, remembering the book's advice. "Keep alert guys," I warned my pokémon. "The trees cover a lot here."

I heard my pokémon voice their agreements, and continue their chatter a moment more. I assumed that they'd divided up who was going to keep watch on what, as instantly afterwards Loki scuttled around us in wide circles, analysing the surroundings with vigour, whilst I felt Xander stare up and above us.

I felt safe with them.

Until something crunched under my foot.

I leapt into the air in alarm even as Loki rounded on the noise. I panted in alarm, holding a hand out to signal to my ghost it was okay. He made a small growl and turned back, sniffing at something I couldn't see or smell.

I cursed myself silently. I'd forgotten to test my footing as I walked through the grass. It was that worn and trodden in parts where I walked that I simply assumed I was continually stepping on dirt. I glanced down at the floor, afraid that the worst it would be was a shed-kakuna shell.

Instead I found two halves of a broken poké ball.

I stared at it, unconsciously whispering, 'what the?' as I bent down to analyse it.

It was rather new, I could tell that much. I couldn't tell much else, but gathered by the small bloodstains within that it had been occupied at one point or another. Xander croaked on my shoulder as I searched for anything else. I found another dead poké ball, and a wallet devoid of anything but dust. Someone must have found it all before me, I realised. I felt around and found the base of a wooden pole lodged in the thicket. I pulled with all my might and dislodged it, falling back with the force of it. Something began to hiss above me. My heart leapt in my chest. I glanced upwards to see what it was –

- only to have a heart attack as a spinarak leapt out.

I shrieked and jumped backwards on the floor, even as Xander leapt from my shoulder and to my defence. The spinarak hissed once more and scuttled off into the forest, only a few paces in front of Loki, who chased it away a small distance.

I breathed heavily and began to laugh at my foolishness.

Then something wet hit my forehead.

I yelped and jumped backwards again, and this time I felt something drip on my leg. With shaking hands I reached up to my forehead and wiped it, my fingers coming away wet and sticky.

I stared at my fingers.

They were stained with blood.

Loki raced to my side eagerly and began to sniff the air. He caught the whiff of blood on my leg and analysed it before he licked his lips eagerly.

"No!" I shouted at him as he tried to bite my leg. "Bad Loki!" I hissed, whacking him across the temple. He yelped and retreated a pace, sulking like a scorned child.

I pushed the thought aside. Instead I glanced upwards to see what was dripping on me –

- and found myself staring at a blood-stained cocoon.

I leapt to my feet instantly, backing up a few paces in case it attacked. When a moment passed and my frantic breathing slowed, I stepped forwards and attempted to analyse it again.

Even then it was still dripping with blood, once every half a minute or so. It was about ten feet above me, and suspended by a thick string of silk from the nearest branch. The pod was slightly yellow in places, and I realised the body was decomposing inside, fluids leaking freely from it.

I shuddered and rubbed my arms, suddenly cold. It was once a person, probably one of the many trainers that had got lost within the forest. I squinted at it a moment more, deciding that I didn't want to end up like the poor soul.

"C'mon guys," I whispered to my pokémon. "The blood's going to attract other pokémon."

My pokémon nodded eagerly by my side. I took off with them and made it a few steps before something wrapped round my feet. I screamed as I lost my footing and fell face-first into the floor, rolling over and spitting out mouthfuls of dirt and grass.

I shot up, only to fall over again as the strange substance around my feet became as hard as rock. I glanced down and noticed it covered in a strange silk like that of the pod, and my heart dropped instantly.

"Oh... shit," I cursed, and jumped once more as something rustled in the bushes. "Xander, blast it away!" I hissed, keeping my voice low. "Loki, help me get my feet free!" I ordered, even as I made a grab for the knife on my hip.

I heard Xander croak as I pried my knife free and bent down to release myself. Loki cackled by my side, gleefully shredding into the rock-hard silk. "Careful!" I hissed at him, not wanting to lose my feet. I managed to get free in time to see Xander hit by a blast of silk in the face, and heard him struggle to breathe beyond it.

_Shit!_ I cursed once more, repeating the word over and over in my mind. "Loki, deal with it!" I hissed. I turned away and carefully picked up Xander, studying his face for any sign of his features. Unable to find anything, I picked a spot and prayed it was his mouth as I pressed the knife in. I heard him gasp for breath and gasped myself, relieved and amazed. I pulled it from his face, cutting the both of us with the force of it.

Loki screeched as the unseen pokémon dove at him. I whirled round and leapt to my feet, moving constantly and telling my pokémon to do the same. I couldn't see what was in the grass, but I stood taller than it, making myself an obvious target whilst I tried to see what it was.

"Ah!" I screamed as the silk slammed into my left hand, attaching it to my side. I cursed and flailed, attempting to right myself even as my pokémon tried to attack the mystery pokémon. "Loki, draw it out!" I hissed. "Xander, beat it senseless when it emerges!"

I continued to try and pry myself out of the sticky fluids. Every time my arm would reach a certain distance before snapping back into place, making me curse once more. I grabbed the knife and tried to work my way out, one handed, as I noticed Loki start to torment the mystery creature. It hissed from within the bushes, and I noticed a sudden flash of pink as it leapt out, spikes leaking a horrible, viscous purple fluid.

Before I could even react Xander blasted it from the sky with pressurised water. The insect shrieked and flew backwards a good few feet, bouncing over the dirt. I glanced at it and couldn't believe my luck – a wurmple! Loki hissed and readied his claws, and I barely had time to scream, "Subdue it!" before he attacked.

His claws shredded into the pokémon's vulnerable skin, breaking it easily but leaving only small gashes. He picked up the flailing insect and smashed its head into a nearby rock with vicious force, and I was amazed the wurmple was only dazed by the assault, and not simply a blotch on the rock.

Grinning, I grabbed a ball from my pack after freeing my arm and readied it the best I could. I threw it with all the force I could muster at the creature, and watched with baited breath as it slammed into the wurmple's skull and exploded open, sucking it in with a flash of red light.

"C'mon, c'mon," I whispered, clenching my fists in anxiety. Finally it stopped rocking and dimmed, and I couldn't help but cheer in victory. "We caught it!" I exclaimed, everything else forgotten in that one moment. "We caught it!" I repeated, even as Xander nudged the ball in interest.

Loki didn't seem to mind. He danced around me in jubilation – even more so when I praised him and Xander both.

I snatched the ball from the floor and wondered what to do with it. I had a wurmple, and was rejoicing at the fact. Finally something seemed to be falling in my favour! After narrowly escaping a killer sceptile and finding a corpse in a silk pod, that had to be my good luck!

I stared at the ball a moment longer. I knew I was at least a few days away from the nearest town – further still if Petalburg was still shut. I couldn't leave the little bug inside it's ball until then. I had enough medical equipment on me to patch it up, and was certain it would only need a good night's rest afterwards.

I pried the pokédex from my pocket and scanned the poké ball, confident it should work. A smile erupted on my face when a bunch of information lit up on the machine's screen, ranging from the pokémon's height and weight, to a brief analysis of it's health and age.

"Wow," I said, catching my pokémons' attention. "The wurmple's almost eight months old. Means it'll be a beautifly or a dustox in no time!" I couldn't help but laugh at the thought. My luck had finally hit a good point, it seemed. I pressed another button and found the information I needed. "Apparently it's a male wurmple," I said, more to myself than my pokémon. "I wonder what name I should give it."

A list of names blossomed into my head, though I pushed them away. I'd named Xander before I really knew him, and he'd taken a while to respond to his name. Loki, on the other hand, had got to know me slightly first, and adapted to his name almost immediately. I decided to name the creature after first getting to know it, confident it would take to the name easier.

I looked at my pokémon and clutched the ball tight in my hand. "Guys, think you're up for a little defence?" I asked them. They looked up at me curiously, and I held the ball out before them. "I'm going to let him out to heal him, as well as introduce him to us. If it looks like he's going to attack, feel free to subdue him."

I waited for their agreement before I tossed the ball between us all. The wurmple emerged in a flash of light, circled by myself, Loki and Xander. The light faded and left the small pink bug in its place, which stretched in slight discomfort, eyes shut in possibly pain or sleepiness.

It took a moment, but the wurmple snapped its eyes open. When it did, it immediately hissed, its back and spikes raised into the air threateningly. Instantly Loki snapped his jaws shut around its neck and burst it in a shower of flesh and blood. He shook the dead creature like a toy, heedless of my cries against it.

"Loki stop!" I screeched, finally pulling him to a halt. He spat out what remained of the wurmple – which was unrecognisable and never seemed to have ever been alive. He looked up at me, a wide smile on his face, chunks of flesh between his teeth. I was torn between scolding him for killing it, and praising him for acting in defence so quickly.

I opted for the former. "Bad Loki!" I yelled at him. "I said subdue it, not kill it!" He looked up at me, whimpered and shrunk back into himself. I couldn't help but sigh. I bent down and reached out, scratching his head softly. "Next time, don't kill one, okay?" I said softly. "I need other pokémon like you and Xander – they're kinda useless dead."

Xander croaked behind me. I turned around to praise him for being so vigilant, only to stop dead as I noticed what he was staring at.

All around us, multiple wurmple were slithering down the tree trunks, along the branches above and even in the grass around us. It was nothing short of an army of them, and I dimly remembered the silk pod above my head.

We'd walked straight into their nest without ever knowing it.

They all looked at us with their beady little yellow eyes, and I knew that if we tried to run, we'd be caught in their sticky webs. If we moved at all, we were surely doomed.

I couldn't help but glance at Loki. "If you'd never killed that wurmple, we could have talked our way out of this."


	17. Darkness

_**Pokémon**_

**_Regret_  
**

**Darkness**

**

* * *

**_That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger _~ Friederich Nietzche

**-O-O-O-**

_"Normal people are capable of extraordinary feats in times of due stress. It might be a surge of adrenaline that lets them race across a building to find someone who needs help, or even getting the strength they need to lift something they normally couldn't in order to protect someone or even help save a life._

_But people forget every person in the world is capable of killing. We've evolved from a hunter-gatherer society, all our ancestors used to go out into the wilds and kill for food. Trainers do much the same now, except to a lesser degree. But the fact we've come from people that used to kill on a daily basis is still running around in our genes, shaping us and making us who we are._

_The point is, if someone breaks into your home, you're going to defend it. You might be a doctor or a surgeon, or any professional that's trained to save lives, but once someone threatens you or your family, you're going to be able to take one to save the lives of your family._

_The difference between lawful killings and unlawful killings is quite simple: lawful killings are out of self-defence, or killing one to protect many others._

_But of course, the law doesn't work as simply as that. There's a great number of loopholes within every statement, meaning no matter what you do, there's always a high chance that you're the one who's going to find themselves on the wrong side of the law._

_But the simple fact is, if you kill someone and try to cover up the crime, or even rejoice in their death just a little, you're guilty. No person should be able to kill and carry on their life unaffected by it. If you can... well, you deserve locking up with the rest of the murderers the world has to offer."_

- Superintendent Malcolm Starre, Lilycove Police Department. _(August 24th, 3008)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

Wurmple swarmed all around us. Everywhere I looked, I could see their beady yellow eyes. I only just managed to notice the presence of a few more silk pods, and realised that I was only going to be the latest in a long line of victims.

I pulled a face and looked around the trees as best I could, looking for a possible way out. All I found were more silk pods and swarming wurmple. Small puddles and ponds that lay around the area had clusters of wurmple eggs laid within them. There was nothing I could use as a way out!

I needed to run. Xander would only slow me down. I needed to recall him and flee as quickly as I could, and just hope and pray to whatever deity that was listening that I would survive. Loki could use shadows as a method of transport, but I wasn't confident in having him transport anything that wasn't himself. He tried it with a rock once, and it came back as nothing but a fine powder.

I got to choose between becoming wurmple food, or reduced to dust.

I had to take my chances with fleeing. "Guys," I said quietly, moving as little as possible. "We need to run." My legs trembled slightly at the approaching beasts, and it took everything for me not to just flee and leave my pokémon there at the wurmple's mercy. "I'm going to recall you both and run for it." I heard them both make small noises of protest, yet they stayed alert and ready to attack, if need be. "I'll run faster that way," I told them, in blatant disregard of their own opinions on the matter. "Once it's safe, I'll let you both back out again."

I began to count mentally, ignoring my pokémon's distracted cries of protest. Once I hit three, I snatched their balls as quickly as I could, and recalled them in a flash of light.

Unfortunately, the wurmple took that as a threat.

Instantly silk was sprayed at me from every direction, and by some miracle I managed to roll out of the way in time. I spared a glance to the silk-covered spot I just occupied and started at the sheer volume of it.

I didn't give them a chance to have a free hit. As quickly as I could I raced back in the other direction, taking my chances with the sceptile rather than those bugs. I could hear string being spat in my direction, and once or twice stumbled forwards as it shot into my back. It felt like someone was hitting me with rocks, but I carried on running regardless. I ran in an erratic pattern, trying to limit their aim.

My lungs were burning with the effort. I leapt over branches and outstretched twigs, heart racing at a mile a minute as adrenaline coursed through me. I shrieked as they began to descend from the trees and forced myself to run faster, hoping I could somehow outrun them all.

I squinted as far forwards as I could. I could see a small hill, and could smell fresh water. It had to be the stream again! I was certain if I could hide in it, I would be able to lose my pursuers.

Something snapped around my ankles and I screamed as it brought me to the floor. The ground collapsed under my weight, revealing a pit trap into a small network of tunnels. I leapt up as far as I could and slashed open the silk binding my feet together, taking shallow, quick breaths as I tried to figure a way out.

I'd fallen at least two metres – I wouldn't be able to climb out. I could see a tunnel off towards the direction of the stream, and could feel that the mud around it was wet. It had to lead there!

A clicking sound interrupted my musings. I barely stifled a gasp and turned around slowly –

- only to find myself staring at the salivating mandibles of an ariados.

I screamed and fell back reflexively. It hissed in attack and instinctively I kicked it in the face. It reared up in pained anger, hissing and clicking furiously. I backed up as quickly as I could, scraping away layers of dirt behind me as I tried in vain to get through the tunnels and into the stream. I was so close to the edge of the hill! There had to be something I could dislodge that would make us fall into the water below.

Unfortunately, the ariados didn't want me to get away. Its mandibles dripped saliva everywhere, and it pinned my legs down with its heavy, hairy body before I could attack it again. It scuttled over me, and pressed its face into mine. I winced and turned my head, unable to deal with the stench of rotting meat and poison in its breath. I felt saliva drip onto my neck and shuddered.

I was sure I wouldn't be able to attack it without being injured first.

I was just about to make the gamble to escape, when a person's voice echoed from above us.

"Stop."

It was a simple, bland statement, in an equally bland voice. Though it affected the ariados instantly. It hissed and scuttled backwards, moving far enough away for me to sit back up. My heart was racing as my head whipped around, trying in vain to see where the voice had come from.

"Escaped the wurmple, did you?"

My head snapped up at the sound of the voice. I found a man staring down at me from the edge of the pitfall trap. His hair was a dyed green, mottled with sweat and dirt. It fell limply around his face, stretching to his neck and framing his eyes. One long clump of it was neatly between his eyes and over his nose, and I noticed the tell-tale colour of dried blood covering it.

He looked down at me, his eyes shining and yet seeming to be incredibly dark at the same time. "I'm amazed you managed it this far."

I squinted at him, and couldn't stop my mouth from dropping open in alarm. "You _watched_ all of that?"

He grinned. "I was sent here by Hoenn's Elite Four to investigate the mass disappearances in these woods."

My eyes narrowed, and I felt hope attack my heart even as my brain screamed _danger!_ "You're a champion then?" I guessed. "A bug specialist?" I furthered, deathly aware that the ariados was still watching me with menacing eyes.

He shook his head. "I'm part of Sinnoh's Elite Four."

I stared at him, disbelieving. "Then if you're sent here to investigate everything, and you're an Elite Four member, why the fuck are you leaving me down here?" I screamed at him.

He smirked once more, his paradoxical eyes regarding me with amusement. "Because I'm the one that's behind all of it."

It was like someone had punched me in the gut. "Bu-wha-why?" I stumbled through my words. It made no sense! Everything I'd heard about the Elite Four painted them in the light that they looked out for the good of everyone!

Really, I should have realised that no one is above corruption.

He bore a fanged grin at me. "Do I need a reason?" He snorted to himself, and I felt myself glaring up at him. If I could have, then and there I would have strangled him with my shoelaces. "Do you think I'm some sort of comic book villain who's going to explain everything to you, just to give you that insight before you die?"

I shrugged. I knew I needed to get my hands on my gun, but couldn't make an obvious move for it. Instead I began to try and pry myself up the wall with fear I didn't need to fake. "You're an Elite!" I protested, indignantly. "You're meant to look after people, aren't you?"

He shrugged once more. "Maybe I am. But you see, there are certain _needs_ that have to be fulfilled... it just so happens that picking off travellers in forests is the easiest way."

My mind raced with the possibilities. For one, horrible moment, I thought he was suggesting he was going to rape me, and my mind flooded with horrible imagery. Then I remembered the ariados, and looked at it, still stood a foot away from me, looking eager to eat me, yet restrained by some invisible force.

It was like everything clicked into place at once. "You're evolved to insects, aren't you?" I guessed. "You're not just a specialist... you've adapted."

He seemed shocked for a moment. But as quickly as it flashed through him, it vanished. "I suppose I am," he said, and clicked his fingers. The ariados lunged at me, though stopped inches from my face as he clicked again. Once more I felt its horrible, stinking breath in my nose, and tried not to gag in the long moments before it scuttled back once more.

"But I'm more than adapted," he furthered, pacing around the opening of the pit. "The Elite Four of each region are some of the most in-tune with their specialist natures. I just so happen to be one with the insects of the world," he explained, glancing up at the tree lines. I shuddered, remembering the many wurmple that inhabited them, and theorised it was only him keeping them back, much like the ariados in the pit with me. "But like insects, I need to feed off others to live. I can still eat normal, human food, but it just so happens that consuming the blood and flesh of other _living_ creatures provides me with so much more energy."

I understood the dark look in his eyes instantly. "You're addicted," I said, gravely.

"Some would say that," he conceded with a shrug. He looked back down at me, smiled, and for the first time I noticed _he had fangs. _"But whoever says it just doesn't understand. I am only as addicted to nourishment from flesh and blood as any normal human is to water and oxygen."

My mind was a blur with thoughts of escape. Nothing I could think up would let me escape quick enough, or let me escape unharmed. I needed to stall him. Thankfully, my panic and shock made my mouth work of its own accord. "S-someone's going to find out," I said, pulling at the dirt wall behind me. "When you don't give them any proof about the disappearances, they're going to realise you're behind this."

He laughed. He actually _laughed_ at me. "They won't live to tell anyone," he said darkly. I stuttered for words once more, and he crouched down above the pit, staring at the wall behind me. "Even if they do manage to get away, it'll be their word against that of an Elite – it goes unspoken that our word is law."

My jaw had dropped once more. It just couldn't be happening! What sort of sick world was it where even the people who were meant to protect trainers would just pick them off for food? Surely the governments had to realise an insect specialist would have those sort of urges? Unless they didn't know, and the fact had been hidden from them for as long as the adapted themselves had known.

Or they did know, and merely overlooked it.

I wasn't sure which of those scenarios I preferred. I stared up at him, hands and jaw shaking and whispered, "There'll be someone strong enough to take you down."

He laughed at me once more. "I doubt that," he said, confidently. "The Elite never turn on one of their own. All of our crimes are condoned – who cares if a few hundred trainers die when we stop thousands more dying with our strength? I can commune with the insects: from as high up as pokémon to as low as the tiny little ants that live underground. Each and every one of them can be bent to my will."

I couldn't help myself. "You're crazy!"

"Perhaps," he conceded. "Or perhaps I understand the needs of the natural world better than any normal human." He stood and swung his arms by his side, still staring at the spot behind me. "It's not like anyone's strong enough to stop me. Just ask that champion there."

I blinked and turned my head. Instantly I screamed as I saw a decomposing head sticking out of the dirt. I jumped back, and in doing so managed to tear down a bit of the wall. All the dirt fell down at once, and I found myself with a decaying, dried out corpse in my lap.

Although dirty, his clothes were still intact. Instantly obvious on his cloak was an emblem of four swords, meeting at top and bottom and forming a diamond. Inside there was a small message, identifying it as Blake Rogers. The green background was symbolic of the Johto league, coupled with the Johto emblem of a rainbow wing laced together with a silver wing.

I looked between the corpse and his murderer, my jaw in a permanent state of shock. "It's completely dried out," I said, alarmed. Underneath the pile of dirt, I slowly started to move my hand towards my gun. Thankfully my movements were covered well enough to make sure he wouldn't notice. "Like all the body fluids have been drained."

The Elite member shrugged. "He happened to find out what was really going on here. I wasn't going to let him just go and tell someone about it." He picked up a rock and threw it lazily at the collapsed portion of the wall behind me. "Look closely enough and you may even find the remains of his team there. There's even what's left of a gyarados!" he gloated, laughing in maniacal amusement.

I felt myself wince. If he had managed to take down one of those draconic beasts with only a few insects, I knew I was screwed. Despair flooded me at the same time I clasped my hand around my gun, and I flipped the safety off as quietly as I could.

The Sinnohian looked at me. "And you're going to be joining them."

He clicked his fingers.

The ariados lunged.

I pulled free my gun and fired.

My ears rung in screaming protest at the loud sound in such a close space, and I heard the Elite scream even as I was showered in blood and gore both. I scrunched open my eyes, squinting past the blood on my face and saw the ariados, now completely headless, thrashing for a moment before it stilled.

I stared up at the Elite and met his eyes for a moment. I saw him go to click his fingers again and pulled the trigger as quickly as I could. He was faster. He leapt to the side, and my bullet only just grazed his arm instead of hitting his heart.

I heard him cry out in pained alarm, but paid it no attention. Instantly I began to excavate the dirt wall, hoping to bury myself and cover my escape. Frantically I ploughed through, dislodging the withered remains of an espeon and a meganium before I found myself staring at the colossal, dead maw of a gyarados. I winced reflexively, afraid that even in death, its mouth was still far larger than my whole body.

I dove into the remaining dirt in a frenzy. Above me, I heard the Elite member cough, groan and shout out a command.

My blood froze on the spot. I made my decision instantly, and taking a deep breath, I climbed into the remains of the giant sea serpent's mouth. It smelt truly horrible – a damp, decomposing smell mixed with something I hoped never to identify.

Only once I reached the end of the dead creature's mouth did I realise how stupid my plan was. The pokémon's throat was nowhere near large enough for myself to fit into – I'd effectively trapped myself.

I began to hyperventilate, then gag on the sickly smell within the creature. I needed to think, fast as I could. I knew the Elite was behind me, no doubt getting more bug pokémon to come and bring my demise. I had perhaps a few minutes to get an escape, otherwise I was going to end up as insect food.

I breathed. I needed to think. I forced myself to take a breath, and tried to think as clearly as I could. Despite everything, I couldn't manage to think past the buzzing noise.

My breath caught in my throat. Buzzing noise?

"Fuck!"I cursed aloud, panicking completely. I was a _complete_ idiot! I'd crawled into a _decomposing_ gyarados! Among everything that ate decaying flesh, the main things were _insects!_

Insects, which the Elite just so happened to be able to control.

"_Shit, shit, shit!"_ I cursed, panicking. I was going to die in a large, dead, decomposing gyarados! I took a breath and made myself calm down. I could get out of the situation, I just needed to make sure I was able to think past the haze of panic. I grabbed Loki's ball and called him out, effectively deafening myself further. I didn't wait for him to look around and become excited in the new surroundings. "Dig us out of here!" I screamed at him, and grabbed the knife from my belt. I hacked my way through some of the dead pokémon's throat, thankful that its decomposition meant its flesh was softer and easier to cut through. "We need to get out of here!"

Loki seemed to understand. He leapt forwards and dove into the creature's body with animalistic frenzy. I paid no attention to the fact he was gorging himself on food even as he managed to hack and slash an opening large enough for me to climb through. We managed to get further through it, and I found myself having to crawl on my hands and knees through soggy, decomposing gyarados organs.

And suddenly, it began to move.

My eyes widened and I whipped my head round instantly. What I saw made my fear increase by tenfold. Ants, flies and other insects were _eating_ their way through the gyarados, consuming everything on their path to us both. No doubt I'd end up being eaten alive within a few minutes.

There were so many of them, they ate a foot of flesh in under a minute.

"Hurry!" I screamed at Loki. He glanced at me, then to the insects behind us, and I saw his face drop in alarm. He dove at the flesh with renewed speed, not bothering to eat as he attempted to claw his way out of the serpent's corpse.

I cursed myself even as I tried to hack my way out. I should have climbed on the ariados' corpse and climbed out of the pit! Even if the wurmple were up there, I could have taken my chances with them, rather than being trapped within a dead gyarados!

The bugs were getting closer. I could hear their wings beating and their jaws clicking in ravenous hunger, consuming everything in their path. Flesh was being torn from bone behind me, and I could hear every bit of it as I tried in vain to get out of the creature's body.

"Move, move, move!" I shouted at Loki, seeing him beginning to claw dirt. The gyarados' body was that long it damn well reached the edge of the hill, and I only had to crawl a few feet to escape into the light!

Unfortunately, the bugs were eating faster than ever. I crawled as quickly as I could after Loki, panting and cursing all the while. My hands slipped in liquids I'd never cared to discern, and I was forced to breathe in smells that I never thought I would have to endure.

The insects were getting closer. I could feel them breezing around the back of my legs. They were eating more and more. I shuffled forwards, just about able to get out and screamed as I felt blistering pain assault my leg. I shuffled past it, trying to shake off as many of them as I could. Loki danced back and grabbed me, pulling with all his little might to get me out of the pokémon and into the dirt. Amazingly he helped, and I found that we tumbled out, breaking through the dirt and into the wide open. We carried on rolling and landed with a loud splash in the stream, and I surfaced, spluttering and gasping for breath. My leg burnt, and I could see faint trails of blood circling around us in the water. I winced, knowing it would attract something soon. I grabbed Loki and helped him stay aloft, whilst keeping him away from my blood.

I managed to pull us onto the banks and flopped down, exhausted. I looked back up and caught the briefest flash of dirty green hair and felt all hope drain out of me completely. He turned and disappeared from my sight, and I knew I had to keep moving.

He was hunting me through the forest, like some sort of sick game. And the reward for winning was getting to live.

I had to escape him, and survive to complete my journey. But at the same time, I had to make sure he wasn't able to carry on his homicidal rampage.

Which left me with the problem: how do you kill an Elite on their home turf?

* * *

I'd lost track of the time as I made way through the rest of the forest. I had no idea where I was, let alone the time or how I was going to get out of there. I'd managed to bandage up my leg, and thankfully saw that it was only a flesh wound. Still, I prayed that it wouldn't become infected and leave me having to hop my way to complete my journey.

When Xander saw it though, he instantly gave me what I can only assume was an angered look. He then glanced up and shot me in the face with a blast of water powerful enough to make me stagger back a step or two. He glared at me a moment more, then croaked and nudged his head softly against my uninjured leg.

I understood instantly. He was annoyed with me first for recalling him when we were in danger, and for getting injured without him there to protect me. He may have thought that I might have actually died, and it would have only been my own stupidity to blame for it.

I didn't have the heart to tell him off for attacking me. Instead I crouched down and rubbed his chin gently, eliciting a small sound that sounded like a warped purr.

It made me realise something; my pokémon both cared for me, and would do anything to protect me – even if half the time Loki also wanted to try and eat me. Yet, I didn't even have the courtesy to explain everything to them. They were my only true allies in the world, and I needed to make sure I treated them with the respect they deserved.

I glanced around, making sure it was safe enough to stop for a short while. I had no idea where the Elite was, or whether or not he'd found me yet. I'd left bloody bandages in a random direction, and made sure I doubled back and went another way from any blood drops I had left behind. He had the whole forest to his advantage; every insect, no matter how big or how small, could talk to him and tell him what they knew. I couldn't afford to give him any help in finding me.

I looked at Xander, then over at Loki. They both stood motionless, waiting for me to move again, though I could tell they were both alert. They knew to be on the lookout for any bugs, and knew to try and kill it as quickly as possible. I was just thankful the trip in the stream had washed me clean of the ariados blood and the decomposition of the gyarados.

I also discovered that my bag was amazingly waterproof, and that nothing had permeated it. Then again, it was lined with leather made from water pokémons' skin, which no doubt helped it to resist water.

I tossed my bag on the floor in front of me and sat down lightly on it. Both my pokémon looked at me in interest, and I offered them a small smile. "I've got a few things to tell you," I admitted. I received no verbal response, and wasn't even sure they could completely understand me, but I had already begun to feel somewhat lighter. I took a breath and told them, "I'm from the future."

Xander croaked. Loki burst out laughing.

I scowled at them both. So they understood something of what I'd said, and just how ridiculous it truly sounded. Regardless, I couldn't hold it against either of them. If the roles were reversed, I would have laughed at someone who claimed to be from the future.

"It's true," I told them, snapping them from their disbelief. "I'm from a world eighty years from now." They both wore looks of what I assumed to be humoured disbelief, and I found myself wanting to laugh at myself for admitting it out loud. "The world I'm from is completely fucked up," I whispered, and knew my tone expressed how true it actually was. "There's a virus that plagued everyone – pokémon and human alike. It started off pretty bad: it would reduce all a person's base instincts except for the need to eat. They still needed to sleep, but they became such light sleepers that anything would wake them up. It made them always hungry, and somehow managed to increase their speed and strength.

"I think someone was probably playing around with pokémon and human genetics," I said, more to myself than the pokémon. "Most likely they managed to make the pokérus able to travel across species. But it went completely wrong, and fucked up everything and everyone. The infected went round killing everyone that was still living. There's about two-hundred and fifty thousand people left alive in my time, and I'd say at least fifty times that are alive but infected. No one lives in the towns anymore, the best anyone has are small camps manned by soldiers like me, in order to protect everyone from any infected pokémon or people." I could remember everything about it as clear as day. "But there's no such concept as humanity now. Every group of people is just out for themselves – they'll sell out anyone, kill anyone and do anything just to make sure they survive."

I looked away from my pokémon and up to the tree lines above us, thankfully seeing no silk pods. "Apparently the virus evolved in some far away region. I never heard how bad it was, but I know it was bad enough to make them blow it off the face of the earth. Sinnoh got destroyed by a volcano eruption, and Johto and Kanto damn near destroyed each other. They fought together at first, but then something changed. I think Johto wanted to keep the infected alive to see if they could cure them, but Kanto wanted to just kill them all. They argued for ages, and eventually fell into war because of it."

I looked back at my pokémon and noticed with some small sense of pride that they were hanging on my every word. "Hoenn's probably the last place still standing, if only because there's so many islands around it that stop the infected going across. But the water pokémon can still become infected. If an infected person bleeds into the seas, then there's going to be a lot of pokémon that turn.

"It's one of the many theories that went around as to why our planet fell into such a state, and it's the one I believe the most." I shuffled awkwardly on my bag and rubbed the back of my neck. "I mean, one trainer _surely_ couldn't have made everything go so badly, could they?" I shook my head at my own question. "I know the virus spread across counties, and it's what I believe managed to bring down everything. I reckon someone was using it in underground clubs as a steroid for their pokémon, and then it broke out from there, going across people, and then over the world." I stared skywards, sighed and looked back to my pokémon. "I'm telling you this, because I want you to help me stopping it from ever happening. You might not believe me about it, but-" I looked Loki dead in the eyes, "-if we don't stop it, you're going to live through it all. There's about nine months until everything changes, supposedly." I bit my lip and thought out loud, "I'm not totally sure on why it's such a small deadline, but it comes from a celebi – supposedly. I don't know much about them, but if one tells me the events start by the end of this year, I'm going to believe it."

I looked at them both, aware it was probably the most I'd ever talked to them in one sitting. No doubt they didn't understand well over half of what I said, but I still felt better about explaining it to them. "Believe me or don't, I don't care either way," I told them. "But the fact is, I'm going to stop it from happening, and I want you guys on side to help me."

I smiled as they both made small, positive noises. My pokémon were on side for my task, it seemed. It made me feel so much more relieved than I ever thought it would have. Movement above caught my interest from the peripherals of my vision, and I found my head snap up in alarm.

I squinted, wondering just what it was I had seen, and just what was hovering above me now. I found myself staring at the black and yellow patterned wings of a beautifly, and for a moment simply considered it flying there, watching after it as it floated above us all.

Then realisation hit me like a truck.

"It's watching us," I whispered, nodding upwards for my pokémon. I glanced back at the flying bug, and for a moment caught its eyes. Even with the distance between us, I could see the same sort of dark hunger in its eyes that I'd seen in the Elite's.

"Shit!" I yelped, jumping to my feet. He'd damn well sent a pokémon to scout us out! Nowhere was safe within the damned forest!

Xander croaked and I turned to him just in time to narrowly miss a blast of water that nearly took my face off. I was about to scold him until I felt it hit something behind me, and heard a strange, screeching hiss like nails on a chalk board. I turned around...

... and found myself staring into the face of a scizor.

"Holy fuck!" I screamed, leaping backwards instinctively. It growled at me, wings beating on its back and making a buzzing sound. One thing was for certain about the creature; behind the water droplets hanging from its face, it looked _furious_.

I knew I wouldn't be able to shoot it – their bodies were as tough as steel. At best, I'd just manage to piss it off more. The only weak points I could think of were its wings, eyes and the inside of its mouth. I knew it was slower than the scyther it evolved from, but it was still far faster than I could ever hope to be.

"Loki, sic'im!" I screamed, backing away at the same time. I heard Loki growl moments before he leapt at the scizor in a flurry of teeth and claws. Though for all the good it did, he may as well have thrown blades of grass at it. Every attack came off uselessly, and the scizor didn't even seem to register the sableye's presence as it stalked forwards, prolonging my eventual death.

I cursed. The Elite must have made sure his pokémon weren't to kill me. No doubt since I'd managed to shoot him in the arm, he would want to see me die before his eyes. It wasn't much to look forward to, but it was something I could exploit. I wouldn't be killed until the Elite was close enough to see.

Though that didn't stop them from killing my pokémon, or maiming me enough to cripple me.

"Loki, keep distracting it!" I barked, backing away from the hulking insect. "Xander, keep blasting at it – aim for its wings and eyes!"

The scizor flailed as my pokémon worked as a team. Loki managed to keep distracting it with small little digs here and there – more often than not going for its eyes. Every time the bug turned around, Xander would attack it with all the force he could muster. Even still, I could see they weren't actually managing to damage the creature – more annoy it. It flailed its pincers manically, arcing them through the air with deadly, clubbed precision. Once or twice Loki nearly had his skull imprinted into the ground, though every time he just managed to find a shadow to hide and escape in.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the same ability. When Loki vanished from view, the scizor carried on with its strike regardless. It met the top of my left arm with deadly force, and I cried out as I was sent sprawling into the grass some distance away. I rolled over, grunting in pain as I reached up and tested my arm gently. It hurt like hell to touch, but nothing felt broke. My luck was that instead of a broken arm, I was going to have a bruise the entire length of it.

I looked up for a moment and noted with grim realisation that the beautifly had vanished. No doubt to go and report to the Elite. I grunted as I rolled back over and pressed my hands to the floor, pushing myself up as painfully as I could. I could still hear my pokémon battling, and knew that I couldn't just leave them to deal with the murderous scizor.

By some miracle, they were still managing to keep it on its toes. None of them seemed to be injured, though I could tell my pokémon were sagging. I didn't know what could be done to defeat it. In fact, I realised there was nothing I could do to defeat it. I could have got close to pry open some of its carapace with my knife, but that would have left me completely exposed. I needed to distract it long enough to run.

Then I remembered Loki's training drills. He could confuse the scizor, and hopefully that would be enough for it to attack something other than us! "Loki!" I cried out, already reaching into my bag for an object I distinctly remembered discovering in there once before. "When you get the chance, confuse it! Until then, keep distracting it!"

I heard him hiss, and assumed it was a confirmation. I continued to search in vain for my prize. I knew there was a weapon good enough in my bag! I remembered being amazed that there was a baseball bat in my bag, it had to be good enough!

I pulled it out with eagerness and glanced at it a moment. Aluminium. I cursed. No good. It would just crumple on impact. But I only needed to distract the scizor long enough for Loki to confuse it.

Xander croaked in alarm, and I noticed he managed to spray a few bubbles at the scizor. They popped in its eyes, making it scream in pain as it jumped backwards, pincers flailing in every direction. I crept closer towards it, bat ready to be swung. It turned its back to me, and I swung as hard as I could.

But the bug whirled on me with blinding speed and caught it instantly! I managed to offer the creature a sheepish smile, and all I got was its beady yellow eyes narrow on me in unrivalled anger. "Loki, now!" I screamed, even as the bug lifted up the bat and me, and threw me over its shoulder without any effort.

My back hit the trunk of a tree, _hard. _Meanwhile the scizor lifted the bat above its head and snapped it in to with a pinch of its claws. Its bravado earned Loki enough time to attack, and he leapt into the bug's face, cackling manically as the strange, eerie light flashed from his eyes and into the scizor's. It screeched in alarm as Loki jumped away, and began to start attacking unseen opponents.

I had to take my chance! I snatched up Xander's poké ball and recalled him in a flash, running as fast as I could away from the beast. Loki kept up with me all the while, and I remembering wondering just whether I was having a good effect on him or not as we raced through the forest, trying in vain to survive for a few more minutes.

* * *

Everything was a mess. I was meant to have been out of the woods at least a few days before, and would have been if I didn't stop to train my pokémon. On the other hand, if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have survived the continual near-death situations. I couldn't say for sure either way, and knew I just had to make best of the situation I was in.

"The insects are after us," I whispered to Loki. He looked at me like I was mad, and I elaborated, "The Elite can make any insect in the forest bend to his will. We've got to escape, yet at the same time, we've got to make sure he can't do this to anyone else." I glanced around, taking note of the sparser amount of trees and increase in amount of strange flowers and bushes. "We need somewhere to hide for a bit."

He looked up at me a moment and then at our surroundings. I knew his eyesight was far greater than mine, and just hoped he knew and understood what the concept of hiding was. He suddenly let out a series of grunts, excitedly pointing towards the west. I looked at him, then to the west, but couldn't make out what he was pointing to. I weighed up my options and realised my best chances of surviving were just to follow him. I nodded and let him lead me.

He made me follow him through a series of large growths of plants I'd never managed to see before. They were all hues of colours, and I wondered just where they came from. They didn't seem to be native to Hoenn, and I knew they couldn't have grown naturally within the forest without any help.

Loki made a series of excited noises and pointed to a log cabin situated in the middle of a small clearing. The trees circled the house, giving it a natural border, and a series of the strange, foreign flowers framed a small pathway that lead up to the cabin's door.

I considered it a moment. On the one hand, it could belong to a complete stranger who lived within the woods, and wouldn't appreciate me barging into their home. On the other, it could be the home of the strange Elite stalking me, and it would mean walking into near-certain death.

It was a risk I had to take. If it was his place, I could lay a trap for him. I raced forwards and hammered on the door a number of times. I heard a small amount of shuffling within, and gathered that there was someone inside.

I screamed that I was coming in moments before I barged into the room and no doubt alarmed whoever lived within. Panting for breath, I slammed the door behind me and leant my back against it, breathing shallow and fast.

"I-I'm sorry," I panted, aware I hadn't seen the owner of the cabin. Beside me Loki chattered, scouring around the room. "I'm being hunted by someone. H-he's been killing travellers in the forest."

I heard more shuffling, and was amazed by the figure that stood in the doorway opposite me. It was almost a metre and a half tall, and covered in dark brown skin. There was a lighter brown mask that framed its eyes, and a long nose stuck out from beneath them. A small leaf grew from its head, and its hands and feet were both long and clawed. Strangely, it had thin, wispy white fur beginning to grow from its chest and head both, and its eyes were a bright, haunting yellow, with dark-set black eyes. Small bladed leaves were growing from its knuckles, and it rasped a few incomprehensible syllables at me.

I stared at it. It looked like a mixture of a nuzleaf and shiftry both. It meant it had to be extremely old, or in the presence of a leaf stone, as it looked like it was halfway between forms. It had to have a trainer, I theorised. No pokémon could have built a cabin in the middle of the woods and occupy it on its own.

I looked at it a moment. "Do you have a trainer?" I asked, moving away slightly from the door. The pokémon looked at me with its distrusting yellow eyes, and I saw Loki shuffle closer to it, sniffing the air around it experimentally. "I need some help," I explained, hoping in some way the pokémon could understand me. "I'm being hunted. Do you have a trainer?" I repeated. A moment's panic flared through me, and I prayed in every way I could think of that my train of thought was horribly wrong. "You don't happen to know a human with green hair, do you?"

It looked at me, beady eyes narrowing on me. Maybe it understood, maybe it didn't. But I could tell that it didn't, in any way, shape or form trust me.

At least, I thought as much until it grunted at me. I wondered what it meant for a moment, until it nodded to a small wooden table I hadn't seen before. It seemed to be made from old wood, and was flayed in various places from use. There was a table near it large enough to fit four people, and I knew the cabin had to be someone's home. It nodded once more to the table, pointing at a small wooden stall.

Loki understood immediately. He leapt up happily onto a stall, jumping like an excited child eagerly awaiting a treat. I sat down with a much more reserved state of mind. I didn't trust the pokémon, and wondered just why it was offering me a seat. Was it a trap? Was it just making sure I was comfortable? Was it merely acting as a good host as it's trainer had taught it? I thought a great number of questions as I sat down, wary of what may happen.

It grunted a few more syllables to me, regardless of my lack of understanding towards it. I saw it move away, out of the room, and heard a variety of noises that sounded like glasses clacking and fluid being poured into cups.

Was it making us a drink? Just who trained their pokémon to act as a host and pour drinks in their absence?

It grunted a syllable or two more as it returned into the room, carrying two steaming clay mugs of a strange liquid. It placed them down before us, and sat down opposite, strange yellow eyes fixed on us both.

I stared at it in interest, slightly unnerved by the fact it was staring at us both. I grabbed the steaming mug it had offered us, and felt my stomach knot in tight anticipation at the amount of light that flared within its eyes.

I placed my hand over Loki's cup before he could drink it. Granted he was still struggling to work out how to pick it up properly, but I didn't want to risk him being able to drink anything from it.

Instead I lifted my own cup up and sniffed at it warily. It smelt like... herbs... mint and... almonds?

_Arsenic!_

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, and threw the mug across the room. "You're trying to _poison_ us?" I accused it, staring it straight in its shocked, angry yellow eyes.

It hissed something that made Loki leap on the table, ears pressed flat against his skull in anger. He hissed back at the creature, and I knew something was going to kick off.

The thing had tried to poison us.

It had to be working with the Elite.

I needed to make sure it couldn't hurt anyone, or anyone else if it already had.

"Get it," I whispered to Loki.

He attacked immediately. I barely caught his movement as he kicked his own cup of poisoned herbal tea at the creature, effectively blinding it and scalding its face in one movement. It reared back, crying out in alarm as it pressed both leafy hands into its face. As quickly as Loki could try to attack it, it reared back and smacked him effortlessly into a nearby wall. The nuzleaf hissed and growled moments before it vanished into the very air itself. I only just managed to leap backwards as I felt a gust of wind breeze past me, and found the creature's fist where my gut had been moments before.

Loki hissed and leapt at it again, slashing wildly at the back of its head. The creature whirled round and punched him in the face even as its other hand grabbed one of the wooden stools in a telekinetic grip. It reared up with a golden lit and smacked into Loki's side, and I couldn't help but wince at the cracking sound of the stool.

Loki was horribly outclassed. I knew that much. If he carried on this fight fairly, we'd both be dead in no time flat. And the sounds would alert the Elite to my position.

"Get it's nose!" I hissed at Loki. I knew nuzleaf were weakened considerably if their noses were damaged, and it hurt them that badly it would wreck their concentration to attack.

Loki pulled himself up, shaking in pain and anger both. He snarled at the nuzleaf and got its attention just before he leapt at its face, hissing and screeching all the while. I saw brown flesh and thick red blood fly everywhere as Loki shredded into the pokémon's face, gripping fistfuls of white hair and ripping it out even as he raked its nose with his bottom claws.

I watched it with some awe. Loki was obeying my commands perfectly, and I was amazed at how vicious he could be when he wanted to. The nuzleaf couldn't even manage to pull off a counterattack, even as it fell over backwards with Loki still attached to its face.

The pokémon was still strong, and I wasn't sure how long it would take to bring it down. I needed to make sure it couldn't harm anyone else in the forest.

Though I realised then, there was another way to make sure it couldn't harm anyone.

"Loki, don't kill it!" I ordered, even as I dove into my pack. He looked at me briefly, and I just caught sight of the nuzleaf's bloody and raked face. Somehow the ghost had managed to miss damaging either of its eyes, and I knew that the creature would be able to survive. He caught sight of the poké ball in my hand and seemed to understand instantly. He reared back and poked his fingers into the nuzleaf's eyes, making it scream in pain at the sudden blindness.

I gripped the poké ball in my hand, and knew I wouldn't be able to aim perfectly by a throw. I raced towards it and slammed the ball onto its nose, taking satisfaction in the screech I gained from it moments before it warped into bright red energy.

Loki fell to the floor as the ball rattled in my hands with enough force to make me drop it. It cluttered to the floor, and I found my breath catch as it shook more viciously then any I'd ever seen before.

And suddenly, it stopped.

I stared at it a moment, completely in awe of what had happened. Loki looked between me and the ball, a wide grin on his face. He picked it up and handed it to me, giving me a look that clearly read _'did I do good?'_

I smiled at him, thanked and congratulated him, promising to give him a treat later. I placed the ball onto my bandolier and looked around the room. With the nuzleaf in a poké ball, I knew it would be relatively safe to explore the house. I nodded for Loki to follow me, in the hopes that we could find something to deal with the Elite hunting us down. No doubt he'd heard all the commotion and would soon be on our tail. I needed something to put him down for good, and something that wouldn't mean I would have to ruin a surprise attack.

I made way further into the cabin. It seemed to be made of only four rooms; the main one the fight broke out in, a small bathroom, a room that seemed to have been used as a living room and kitchen both, and a small bedroom facing a large growth of flowers underneath

I was just about to return and give up when Loki jumped up and pointed towards the rug adorning the floor. I looked at him with a raised brow before he gave up trying to convince me and simply pulled the rug backwards.

I stared. There was a trap door hidden beneath it!

It was such a cliché plot of a horror movie. I stared at it, wondering what sorts of horrors could await me beneath. My minded flooded me with horrible images of people hidden below there, crying out and starving for food, all victims of the nuzleaf's attacks.

The fact that I'd caught it meant it didn't have a trainer. For the first time I truly started to believe it was actually a wild pokémon, and was merely killing people of its own regard. If it was doing that, I started to wonder just what had actually happened to the owner of the cabin.

I had to find out what was beneath the cabin. I pulled my gun free and fished in my pack for my torch, and clicked it on, hiding the light with the hand holding my gun. "Open it," I whispered to Loki, and nodded towards the trap door.

He looked at me once and then back to the door, and with eager interest pulled it open.

Instantly I smelt formaldehyde and death.

The smell seemed to excite Loki, and I made sure to point out to him he wasn't to go crazy down there. He nodded, albeit reluctantly, and took a few steps down the old stone stairs. I briefly wondered why there were stone stairs underneath a wooden cabin, though realised it was probably built over something used a long time ago for whatever reason.

I took a few steps into the cellar, gun primed and ready, and wondered just whether or not it was a wise to keep the nuzleaf alive. I saw multiple people down there, all with the same shocked expression, all with the very same glazed over eyes.

It was a collection of corpses.

There had to be at least thirty of them down there, each and every one not much older than me. There wasn't any discrimination between race or gender, it was only that they were human. I saw multiple broken and rusted poké balls down there, and realised that they'd probably been killed too.

I'd captured a mass murderer.

I shined my light around the dingy basement and felt my breath catch at the sheer volumes it spoke about my newest pokémon. I found someone hunched in the corner, wearing the remains of clothes that had to be well over a hundred years old by that time. He had to have been the original owner of the cabin.

I knew nuzleaf couldn't live anywhere near that long. Someone had to have killed him long ago, and taken over the cabin as their own. They had to have captured the nuzleaf and trained it to carry on their legacy. Maybe the nuzleaf even betrayed them and turned them into one of the sick statues beneath the cabin.

And yet, despite all the horrors, I found a few ideas blossoming in my brain. I lifted the torch up to glance around the horrors, looking for some sort of light switch within. I found one after a moment's search and flicked it on, basking us in amber light.

And screamed as I found another corpse dangling from the wooden beams above. Unlike the others, this one seemed to have been flayed at some point. It was like a waxwork exhibit, where the flesh beneath the skin had been displayed as some sick sort of art work.

I breathed a shaky, panicked breath and turned to Loki. He looked up at me with wide, curious eyes, no doubt concerned about everything he saw down in the basement. His face seemed to say just what I was thinking; _'should you have caught it?'_

I looked around once more. Sure the nuzleaf was a mass-murderer, but at the same time, I knew it was a creature of darkness. They weren't above murdering anything or anyone, and I knew on some, perhaps twisted level, that I held respect for it's knowledge of how to use poisons to kill people.

Maybe it was a murderer, but it was intelligent. I knew I could use that intelligence somehow. I knew I wasn't exactly the most guilt-free trainer out there, and knew I should have been thrown in prison for my crimes in this world and my own.

So what more could owning a serial killer of a pokémon hurt?

I released Xander and let him adjust to the horrific settings for a moment. After I managed to explain things to him, he looked at me in surprise and confusion both, though gave me a slow, confident nod. They'd help me subdue and try to control our new somewhat dangerous ally.

I knew I probably didn't have much time before the Elite found us, but was confident that in the basement, our scents would be hidden beneath the formaldehyde. I grabbed my pokédex and decided that I should find out as much about the creature as I could. I scanned the nuzleaf's poké ball, and made sense of all the information I could.

The first thing it told me was what I already knew; the nuzleaf was still in almost perfect health. After all that fighting, it seemed that Loki truly had done next to nothing to it. I put the thought away and took confidence in the fact that I could always shoot the pokémon if the worst came to the worst.

The second was that the nuzleaf was older than I had first thought. Apparently it was almost twelve _years_ old. I cursed at the thought. I knew I was making progress with Loki if only because of his young age. It was common knowledge that the older a pokémon got, the tougher it was to train. And to add insult to injury, my new homicidal pokémon just happened to be old, and dark in nature.

I finally pulled up the information that it was a female. I stared at it a moment, and then thought back to the pokémon. I was certain _human_ female serial killers were rare enough, yet alone one that was a pokémon. At least it gave me some variety in my team.

Though I do remember worrying, at the time, if female pokémon also went through an equivalent of the time of the month. I shuddered, and tried not to think about it.

I pushed the thoughts away and enlarged her poké ball. I stared at it a moment, considering whether or not it was a good idea to release her in her basement of horrors, before I decided to throw caution to the wind. The poké ball exploded in a flash of light and a blast of noise, and I knew then that the Elite _had_ to have heard that.

The nuzleaf appeared between us, sweeping her harsh yellow eyes over all of us. I knew she was stronger than all of us, and she knew it too. I caught the briefest flash of menace in her eyes and recalled her as quickly as I could. Xander and Loki both looked at me in surprise, though I winked at them both. I had a plan.

I released her once more, and noticed that this time she took a moment to analyse us all, biding her time for her attack.

I wasn't going to let her have that chance.

"I know you can understand me," I told her, confident my plan would work. I made sure to keep my gun trained on her chest regardless, certain I could clip her shoulder before she attacked. "And I know you're not happy about being a trainer pokémon. Maybe your last trainer ended up here," I said, gesturing with a free hand to her workshop of horrors.

"But I don't plan to end up like them," I told her darkly. "I'm your trainer now, and you've got two options: you can either work with me, or you can work _for_ me."

I saw her eyes narrow in offence, and placed a smug grin on my face as I held up her poké ball. "There's a security mechanism on these," I bluffed to her, hoping she wouldn't have some inside knowledge to the contrary. "Since it's registered to you, your brain waves are linked to the ball. There's a switch that I can press if you ever put me into grave danger. One flick of a button, and it will kill you instantly." Her eyes widened in alarm, though nothing else about her moved. I fought the urge to smirk. She'd bought the story.

"Even if you manage to kill me, it _will know_. Kill me, and you'll just kill yourself too." She dropped her arms to her side and looked defeated. I knew I'd won. I placed my gun away and instead held up the poké ball as a constant source of a threat. To me, it felt anything but safe, but I knew that somehow she'd started to find the poké ball more threatening.

I pulled a few healing items from my bag and approached her slowly. "I'm going to heal all the wounds on your face," I explained to her. "It's going to sting a little, but it will make them heal faster than they would naturally." She watched me a moment, then nodded slowly. I made my way towards her and spread the salve over one hand, and began to rub it into her face as gently as I could.

I caught her wince beneath me, and saw from the corner of my eye both Xander and Loki tense and prepare to attack. When the nuzleaf didn't move anymore, and instead relaxed, they both stopped their planned assault. All the while the nuzleaf continued to watch me with hate in her eyes. I knew she didn't want to be a trainer pokémon, and knew that she didn't appreciate being blackmailed into it.

Yet, I was confident I could provide her with something no other trainer could.

"I'm sure you know about trainers," I said to her as I took a step back. She looked at me with a cool expression, and the wisps of white hair danced with the small movements of her face. "I'm not like them," I explained to her. "You can ask Loki if you like," I told her, gesturing to the sableye. "I'm not going to stop you killing," I said, and saw her eyes light up in surprise. "But I'm not going to let you do it all the time. As long as you don't kill anything I tell you not to, and you don't go around killing everything and anything, I'll turn a blind eye to it."

I didn't know the creature at all, but even then I could tell her face clearly said _'oh really?' _

I nodded and looked her dead in the eyes. "I'll prove my point to you," I explained to her, and nodded upwards, towards the cabin. "There's a trainer stalking me through these woods – the one with green hair I told you about. He's been killing travellers and feeding on them, as well as feeding them to his bugs." I smirked at the piece of information I knew would sway her. Pokémon like nuzleaf, which had attributes of grass pokémon, as well as those of darkness had horrible weaknesses to bugs. I knew it was because insects could destroy the chlorophyll that made up the cells of grass pokémon, though could never really attest why pokémon of darkness were weak to it.

It didn't matter much, seeing as it fell in my favour.

"He's an insect specialist," I told her, and noticed her eyes darken. "He's adapted to bug pokémon, and can command them to do his every will. He's using them to pick off people and pokémon both in the forest. I want you to kill him," I said darkly.

She looked at me with what I realised was interest. She seemed torn between wanting to complete it, and being offended that I was ordering her to do it.

But I knew if she truly had a great knowledge of poisons as I thought she did, she'd like my idea. I folded my arms and met her eyes. "I don't want you to use arsenic again. I want to know: do you have any caladium plants growing here?"

The look in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. It was a mixture of respect and intrigue, and I knew I'd found my way to ensure the Elite didn't kill anyone else, and assert some control over the nuzleaf.

Some necessary evils were much more illegal than others.

* * *

I found myself hiding in the small bathroom. The bleaches hidden within masked my scent once I'd poured them in the bath and the toilet. I knew it would probably leave me with a headache, though knew it was a small sacrifice to make.

I didn't have either of my pokémon with me, and knew that neither of them would be able to keep as still as I. Xander didn't seem to like my plan, though seemed to understand my reasons behind it. I think he decided that it could have been dealt with more humanely, but understood that collectively, we were too weak to be able to do the deed any other way.

Loki however just seemed to be eager and excited towards the plan, and I wondered whether it was merely through thoughts of revenge, or just of killing someone.

I couldn't risk either of them out with me. I knew I could easily defend myself in such close quarters if need be, and that anything that happened outside would alert me to what I should do.

I knew if something went wrong, and the nuzleaf died, I could quickly escape out the window. As harsh as it was, I knew that I had no bond with the nuzleaf, and her death wouldn't have meant anything to me.

My breathing stopped as I heard the door to the cabin crash open. I heard my nuzleaf grumble something at the noise, and heard her shuffle around as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

I had to hand it to her: she was a fantastic actor.

I pressed myself as close as I could to the door, trying to catch anything from the conversations I could. I heard the Elite walk in and begin interrogating the nuzleaf, questioning it on my whereabouts. I heard her make a series of replies, though couldn't understand their meaning. It made me realise the biggest flaw in my plan; she could betray me, and I'd never know. Though I was confident my bluff convinced her she couldn't kill me without dying herself, and took comfort in the thought.

I heard the Elite hiss a few curses, and realised she must have made it clear she hadn't seen me or my pokémon. I recognised a few of her tones as those she'd used earlier on me and Loki, and realised she was getting him to sit down at the table. I heard him agree and go along with it, and laugh out loud that it would make a change for him to have something to drink that wasn't blood or decomposing bodily parts.

I winced and fought the urge to be sick at the thought.

Instead I focused on hearing what the nuzleaf was doing outside. I heard the familiar clicks of clay mugs, and heard water boiling and being poured into the cups. It took a moment more for me to hear her walk back into the room, and another for me to hear the man greet her with a happy cheer. He chatted away to her, asking her about whether she had a trainer or not, and other such nonsensical questions.

I heard something being slurped, and realised it was the nuzleaf, as he continued talking. I smiled to myself. I'd explained to her that she was too obvious before; she needed to have a drink of her own and drink it, and also not focus as much on her victims when they drunk the laced drinks. It made her plans too palpable; I was confident with my advice she would succeed in convincing someone she meant them no harm.

I heard the man stop talking for a moment, and felt my heart soar in confidence. Was it wrong I took such pleasure in the thoughts of his death? Probably. But he had hunted me and my pokémon through the forest, and tried to make sure my death was slow and painful because I'd tried to defend myself. I knew I was a great many things, and knew I wasn't above revenge.

I heard a clay mug shatter, and something crash in the opposite room. I waited a moment more and heard a soft knock at the door. It was my cue. I cracked it open a notch and found the nuzleaf staring at me with grim pleasure and respect in her yellow eyes. I nodded and followed her into the room, where I leant against the doorframe and stared at the Elite.

He convulsed on the floor, clutching at his neck and scraping at his tongue in fear.

"Caladium," I said aloud, and caught his attention. His eyes snapped to me, and I caught the briefest flash of fear and acknowledgement in them. He continued to struggle, though kept his gaze on me as if to make me feel bad for what I was doing to him.

It didn't affect me. I'd looked people dead in the face before I'd blown their brains out. I played them all over every night in my dreams, and he would only be the latest in a long line.

I folded my arms and matched his gaze. "Known as elephant ear," I continued to explain. "Every part of it is poisonous, and can lead to pain, irritation and tissues swelling. It's only non-fatal if you don't ingest it. If you do however, it will make your tongue, mouth and throat all swell up, and your breathing will be blocked."

I stared at him with a bitter smile, and saw the nuzleaf lean against the opposite side of the doorframe. As sick as it was, I was impressed by her cold demeanour in such a situation, and her ability to make it seem like she was a close pokémon of mine.

"It takes about four minutes for the brain to die from oxygen deprivation," I told him, and saw the fear double in his eyes. He knew he was going to die, and knew it was going to take at least a few minutes more. "I couldn't let you carry on killing people. I told you someone would stop you," I said with a grim note of humour. "But it just so happens it's me. I would have made it quick," I admitted with a dramatic shrug. "But you never did for your victims, did you? You made wurmple bind them in silky cocoons, and most likely had them stung so they would be poisoned and have to suffocate, all at once.

"That I could have overlooked," I divulged. "But you hunted down me and my pokémon, and tried to prolong our deaths because I'd fought back." My eyes glanced over at his wounded arm, and I saw that he hadn't attempted in the slightest to treat it. I met his eyes again and saw the unbridled anger they contained.

"You taunted me whilst an ariados salivated over me, chased me through the forest, and then got your scizor to try and injure me enough to stop me fleeing." I walked towards him and crouched down beside his face, still meeting his gaze. "You've gotten exactly what you deserved."

His eyes began to water, and his lips began to turn blue. It would be only a few seconds more, and I knew he wouldn't be with the living anymore. I saw the anger from his eyes fade, like I knew it would, and instead was replaced with a pleading, desperate look. Like everyone who was about to die, there was a flash of fear towards it, and a silent plea to let them live just a little while longer.

I placed a hand on his convulsing shoulder, and offered him all the peace I could. "But I forgive you."

And the light left his eyes.

I stared a moment more at him. The smell of fresh shit and piss reached my nose, and I backed away from him. It was the unsavoury aspect of death; whenever anything died, all of its bowels were loosed. No matter how different people were in life, they were always the same in death.

I pressed my fingers to his eyelids and closed them shut gently. I stood and turned to the nuzleaf, offering her a small nod.

"We should move him," I told her. "He needs to be found, and people don't need to see your basement of horrors." She looked at me, bewildered, and I offered her a small smile. "He was a member of the Elite Four. People look up to them, people looked up to _him_ enough to trust him to try to find out what was really happening in the forest. They looked up to him as a hero, and they need that image maintained." I met her eyes with a deathly serious look. "People can't know what he really got up to in here. If they find out the people they look to for protection go around killing them in secret, there'll be massive uproar."

She looked at me with a curious expression. I wasn't sure how much of it she understood until she nodded. She walked up behind him and grabbed the bottoms of his legs, and I followed her lead and picked him up by the shoulders after I checked his wallet and pulled a few bills free. It wasn't like he was going to use them after all. We carried him to a small clearing where there were multiple caladium plants growing all around. If anything, it would look like a tragic accident had befallen him; that in his hunger he'd managed to eat a plant that shouldn't have been native to Hoenn anyway. I briefly debated letting free his pokémon, then realised they would most likely try to attack me on sight with their trainer dead. It was safer to leave them all hidden within their balls, and risk the fact that one or two may still have been out of them.

It was how it needed to be. I couldn't risk people being killed, and I couldn't risk people revolting against their governments because of things they shouldn't know. I didn't know if they would find out the real reasons or not, but was pleased that I'd somehow managed to maintain some good out of it all.

I looked to my nuzleaf and placed a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at first, though seemed to relax into the touch moments later. I followed her line of sight and found her staring at the cabin she once lived in. It was her home, and she knew she'd be leaving it for the foreseeable future, if not forever. I let her have a moment to contemplate it before I softly squeezed her shoulder.

"You know the way out of these woods?" I asked her as gently as I could. She looked at me with what I can only believe was bemusement before she nodded and began walking towards the south.

I saw the woods opening up around us as I followed her, and felt the weight of everything that happened in the forest fall onto my already heavy shoulders. He would become just another face in a cloud of dreams, and just another memory that I would be forced to relieve.

I looked to my new pokémon and considered us both. We were both killers and obviously had no problems taking a life. I wondered then how bad things were that it came to creatures like us to save the world from certain destruction.

Murderers tasked with the fate of the world. That _can't_ have been the celebi's original intention. It wanted to create the perfect world.

Pity there was no such thing.


	18. Progress

**Author's Note:** Hello everyone. Just a quick note for all of you reading this; the story's going to be bumped up to an 'M' rating in two chapter's time. I'll leave a little note like this on the next chapter too, but with what's in chapter twenty, I'm not sure it's going to be able to pass for a 'T' rating any longer. So if you're following this story, please make sure you make a mental note of that fact. Thanks to everyone that's reading this, and as always, don't hesitate to let me know what you think, positive or negative.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

**_Regret_  
**

**Progress**

**

* * *

**_Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his actions _~ Alfred A Montapert

**-O-O-O-**

_"Ever hear that 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction'? Well it's testament in the laws of nature. That what everyone calls Karma is quite simply the statement showing us all that it does exist. No matter what you do, it's always going to have some sort of impact on everyone and everything else. You can carry on pretending as much as you like that it never happened, and maybe one day, you just might believe that. But somewhere along the way, your actions are going to pop up again, and you're going to have to deal with what you did. Maybe you'll go crazy worrying about it. Maybe people will hate you. You might even somehow manage to start war._

_The point is, no matter what you do, it always comes back to bite you in the ass."_

- Professor Edward Birch, 46th Hoenn League Runner Up, Pokemon Habitats PHD, Pokemon Biology and Ecology Msc. _(September 17th, 3012)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

I don't think I'd ever been as happy to see a sunny sky as I was the day I got out of the Petalburg woods. My mind was completely frayed by the events in the forest, and I wasn't sure what day it was, let alone what time it was.

The nuzleaf beside me muttered a few syllables as we exited the woods. I smiled at her and recalled her back into her poké ball, if only to be on the safe side. I knew her species could receive an increase of speed in bright sunlight, and didn't want to risk her being able to attack me before I could do anything about it.

Thankfully she'd led me to the exit near Petalburg City. Even still, I had to walk for another day until I would reach it's limits. I wanted nothing more than a bed for the night and somewhere safe to stay for once.

Unfortunately, Petalburg was still shut because of the virus outbreak. It meant I wouldn't be able to stop there before I went to Dewford, and I wouldn't be able to collect the badge from Petalburg for a good while.

Thankfully, along the way there was a small village that I came across. It was built along the coast and was clearly a tourist resort, given the amount of seaside attractions they had. Regardless, they were prepared for trainers, and it didn't take me long to find the pokémon centre within. I checked my pokémon in with the nurse, and found out that Loki and Xander both only needed seeing to for a few hours, whereas the nuzleaf would most likely need to be in there for a larger portion of the day.

I explained to the nurse that I'd only just captured her, and she was part-way through evolving into a shiftry. The woman nodded and made a note of such a thing, and I was impressed that my record was flagged still with a small mention of Loki's blood thirst. I reassured her that it was better now, but she explained they would continue to exercise caution until he was completely over it.

I thanked her and booked a room for the night, and was amazed to find out it was only oh-six hundred in the morning. It explained why everywhere seemed so dead – everyone was most likely still asleep, or already left to carry on to their next destination.

I didn't care. I needed some sleep. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept within the forest, and realised it had to be some time before I'd encountered the sceptile. I frowned. I couldn't remember how long it had actually been since such an event had happened.

I found my room quickly and realised it had the same Spartan decor as the one me and Ayd had shared in Rustboro, though this one was a slight bit smaller. I tossed my bag and boots in a random direction of the room and hid my weapons under the spare bed, silently thankfully the nurse hadn't noticed them on my person. I was sure it wasn't illegal to carry around a knife for protection, but I had a feeling an unregistered gun would be another story.

I didn't pay it much mind as I climbed into the shower as quickly as I could, rejoicing in the feeling of scalding hot water on my skin. The bottom of the shower quickly turned a thick, nearly black colour, and I blinked at it, wondering just how dirty I really was. All over I could feel my muscles stretching under the feel of the water, and the many cuts and bruises that covered my body sending brief flares of pain as the water hit them. When I finally finished in the shower I stepped straight out, still dripping wet, and decided to get a better view of my wounds.

They weren't pretty.

The mirror showed me that I had a big yellow bruise the length of my arm where the scizor had hit me. Multiple scratches covered my chest from where Loki had attacked me, as well as from falling over a few times. A few smaller bruises dotted my chest, and I had a small number of cuts on my cheeks and my forehead. I wondered how and when I'd got them as I scratched a pathetic amount of stubble.

My back didn't look any better. As far as I could get to see it, it too was covered in numerous small nicks and bruises. I didn't know how many of them would end up as scars, nor did I want to think about it.

I also noted with some pride I had another hair or two on my chest. Not counting the snail trail, I had a grand total of eight.

I felt so manly.

I squinted at myself a moment longer, evaluating to see if anything needed dressing or covering over. As far as I could see, nothing looked like it did. It was good enough for me. I stumbled back into the main room, not bothering to dry myself or get dressed before I collapsed into the bed and somehow fell asleep instantly.

* * *

By the time I woke up later in the day, there was already a faint pink tinge to the sky. I squinted at it from the comfort of my bed and realised that I'd probably managed to sleep in well into the evening.

I groaned, rolled over and switched on the television all from the comfort of my bed. I was still lying there, half in a daze when I saw it flick onto the news channel and tell me it was hitting nineteen hundred hours.

Thirteen hours sleep. I don't think I ever slept for so long in my life. It took considerable effort to keep my face out of the pillow as I stared at the television screen, trying in vain to focus on it and wake myself up.

When the headlines flashed up about a robbery in Rustboro, I was awake instantly. The news was detailing about the weapon shop that I had robbed, and was explaining what was stolen, as well as having a small snippet of an interview with the grotesque man that owned it. Below the screen was displaying that they were still looking for the robber, and that any information would be welcome. Apparently it had started a string of robberies around the same district, and I felt that somehow, I may have been partially responsible.

Though I only stole from the one store. Everyone else was jumping on a trend. No doubt one of them would be caught and punished for them all, which left me in the clear. Even if they discovered it was me, I could still elude capture. How likely was it that the whole country was to be on the lookout for one robber? Though it wouldn't help if they managed to get a picture of me – that would certainly make getting gym badges an even bigger challenge.

I pushed the thoughts away as I climbed out of bed, got dressed and brushed my teeth. I stared at my reflection and was amazed that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn't seem to have massive black lines under my eyes. It was a wonder what a good sleep could do. I yawned and popped my back, and decided I needed coffee.

It didn't take long for me to gather up my dirty clothes and leave them in the centre's laundry collection. It was only a small charge, and apparently would only take a few hours, and they would just drop them off in my room for me when they were done. It made me think about how many travelling trainers actually knew how to wash their clothes in a stream or the like, or whether they carried on with stinking clothes for a while.

At least I had an excuse for mine: I'd been covered in ariados blood and rotting gyarados. I would have been amazed if after the dip into the stream I came out without a stink on me.

Along the way to the canteen, I picked up my pokémon and found that they were all in good health. The nurse told me to keep Xander and the nuzleaf both out of their poké balls when I could, as they would need the room to carry on evolving. Apparently when they were ready to evolve, they would sneak off or remain in their poké balls for a few days until the process was complete.

I thanked her for the information and considered it. It meant that I would be going without one of my pokémon for a good few days when it happened. I ran my fingers over their poké balls and had the strangest feeling that with my luck, they would both go through evolution at once, and leave me with only Loki to defend myself.

I pushed the thought away as I got into the canteen and ordered enough food for myself and all of my pokémon. I decided to treat us all – using the Elite's money – after everything that had happened in the forest. It meant I had to call the nuzleaf from her poké ball, and after giving me the dirtiest look she could muster, she finally relented in helping me carry the trays of food over to a table – if only because I told her if she didn't, she would go without any and I'd pinch her nose. It worked a treat.

I'm sure I practically inhaled my food when we tucked in. I forgot how long it had been since I'd had anything other than protein bars, berries and water, though realised it was the meagre amount of food I'd ate after my gym battle nearly two weeks prior.

My stomach grumbled once again at the thought. I was honestly amazed I hadn't dropped in the forest after everything that happened.

It took a while to get Xander and Loki to understand the nuzleaf wasn't going to hurt us, or anyone else in the centre – even if she did spend the time trying to murder us with her eyes alone. It took a little while longer to explain to Loki that mashed potato wasn't something to play with, though I didn't bother trying to explain table manners to him after that.

It made me realise that the nuzleaf probably ate with the most manners out of all of us. Xander and Loki both sat on the table, happily eating like the animals they were. I was pretty sure I wasn't any better. But she looked at us all in disdain and sat there sipping at a bowl of oran berry soup with her spoon.

I considered her as she ate the food. She had to have had a trainer before, I deduced. I wasn't too sure before, and knew I had no way of getting the information out of her, but the way she ate pretty much proved it to me. That and the way she laughed snidely every time someone was amazed by her mannerisms and praised me for it.

She didn't have much love for me, that much was certain.

I looked at her a moment more, and her menacing yellow eyes rolled up in their sockets to look at me. I held her stare for a moment before I asked, "Have you got a name?"

She looked at me with palpable disdain. A moment later she hissed something and shook her head for my benefit.

Well, at least it answered one thing. And it meant I could communicate with her by simple nods and shakes of the head, if nothing else. Though if she didn't have a name, I knew I needed to give her one. Unfortunately, nothing much could come to mind. I thought about naming her with something to match her personality, though I didn't think she'd appreciate being named 'Rude' or 'Bitch'. Maybe Pinocchio? The thought of it made me grin.

Her eyes flickered to me and I felt a cold shudder pass down my spine. I realised that perhaps being cruel to the creature wasn't advisable until I had her full obedience – given her age, I deduced she wouldn't be as easy to convince as Loki.

I scraped a fork against my empty plate as I thought about what to name her. I knew she had an affinity for poisoning people, and figured I could use that somehow. But it left being able to do it in a subtle way. My first thought was to call her 'Inertia', but somehow I felt like it just didn't fit.

"Lacey!" I exclaimed suddenly, snapping my fingers. She gave me a dirty look, and I felt that I had to explain it to her. "Well, you _did_ try to poison us when you first met us. And you can 'lace' things with poison..."

Her eyes rested on me a moment longer before she gave a tiny nod. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. Somehow I doubted any human would decide what name they should be given. I said her name, and noted with some sense of pride she turned to face me. Although, when I smiled that she was responding to it, she simply huffed and turned away again.

I couldn't help but wince at her attitude. Somehow, I got the feeling that blackmailing her with a death-threat wasn't the best sort of way to gain her trust. But at least it meant that she wouldn't try to kill me at any time, which was always a bonus.

I flipped open my phone and stared at the time. Honestly, I was amazed it was still working after the abrupt trip into the stream, but it seemed to have been built to last. Then again, I considered that I _had_ bought it in a trainer provision shop, so it would have obviously been built to withstand the normal hazards a trainer encountered.

I wondered whether 'normal hazards' included homicidal Sinnoh Elite Four members and murderous sceptiles.

"C'mon guys," I said as I cleared up our trays. "Drill time."

Both Xander and Loki made instant sounds of protest. I couldn't help but laugh; they reminded me of myself when I first started doing training drills. I grinned at them both and shook my head. "We can't slack off just because we've had a meal. We've gone almost a day without them because of-" I lowered my voice to a whisper, "-that murderous Elite. Besides-" I grinned at Loki and nodded towards Lacey. "If it wasn't for our drills, you probably wouldn't have been able to help me catch her. Or survive against the scizor, for that matter," I added as an afterthought.

They both grumbled in reluctant agreement, and I smiled at the both of them. I found it strange how even across species, the thought of having to do intense drills still exhausted everyone before they even began. I considered that I should become a researcher for a moment, though shook the thought away. I doubted I would ever have the smarts to sit down and study pokémon for the rest of my life.

With the way things worked out, I sometimes consider it was a good thing I never planned for what would happen after the end of that year.

I had to recall all of them whilst I walked through town to find somewhere to let them run drills. Eventually I found a spot on the beach that no one seemed to want to visit, if only because it was filled with stones and pebbles, rather than the golden sands everywhere else. It suited me just fine, and at least Xander could swim around happily in the sea.

Whilst Loki and Xander both set to their drills, I turned round to Lacey. She watched the smaller pokémon with a disdained expression and turned to me as if to ask if I was actually serious.

"You're going to have to do these too," I informed her, crossing my arms. "Laugh all you like, but if it wasn't for these, I wouldn't have been able to catch you." She gave me a sharp look. She was interested by that, but still annoyed with the fact. "I'm not going to lie to you or anyone: you're far stronger than either of those two. But yet, I still got Loki to be able to take you down a few notches, didn't I?" I let myself hold a smug smirk as her face clouded in reluctant agreement. "The point is, I can help you train up to defeat things you were never able to before. You saw before; I'm not above pointing out weaknesses for my pokémon to exploit." I met her gaze, and found that there was some form of intrigue in her eyes. "If you show me what you're capable of, let me set up a few drills to help you improve your abilities, I'll help you be able to take down opponents far stronger than you – ones you would have had no choice but to run away from before."

She looked at me and huffed, though went through a brief display of her abilities. I found quickly that she knew only more basic techniques, and could be quite a dirty fighter, given her preferences to kick low or just vanish and attack in blind spots. She could make the leaves on her wrists become razor sharp, and once or twice she managed to nick me with them – which I'm completely convinced were always planned to be intentional.

She was obviously a physical fighter, which gave me something to start from. I had her doing speed drills like the others, and had her trying to increase her strength in another. I knew her species could develop their blows to be strong enough to shatter shields, and needed to figure out how to train her to learn such abilities. There was also the strategy element to it; I knew that even then, my main strategy was purely offence. Xander still couldn't heal himself in under an hour, and it took Loki a lot of concentration to confuse something, though strangely it came completely naturally to him to annoy something to just continually attack him. I had a grand total of three techniques that weren't offensive, and knew I needed a lot more.

Roxanne proved to me how much I would struggle later on, and how much battles could vary, with only her lileep alone. I resolved to find out more strategies I could use, and then implement them for my pokémon. I knew that she had told me the next gym focused on mainly offensive attacks alone, but I knew there would have been some level of battle style other than that.

I ran my pokémon into the ground that evening, realising that none of us were tired. I needed to reset my body clock, as did they, and the only way I knew how to was to train until we were all ready to drop. All of them looked exhausted, though Lacey looked like she'd never experienced such a work out in her life.

I never could forget her face when I started doing speed drills with her, and completely left her in the dirt. She looked like she wanted to kill me, and like she was angry with herself for letting herself be beaten by a human. It ended up turning into a competition where both of us would try to trip up the other or put them off as much as possible. As strange as it was, it was fun. Even more so when Loki joined in, and then Xander began to try and blast us from the sidelines.

It was about another hour before we eventually gave in, and we collapsed onto the stony floor, laughing all the while. Lacey looked at us all as if we were mad, though I know I saw amusement in her eyes. Just by that alone, I knew I would be able to win her over.

Eventually.

I called them all back and made way back to the pokémon centre, managing to book myself on the ferry leaving the day after. Apparently it would be a two day trip, and then it would arrive in Dewford. Supposedly the trip from there to Slateport would be a week. I cursed at the thought, it was yet more time I'd have to give up. It meant I could use those days solely for training my pokémon, yet at the same time, it also meant I wouldn't be getting any closer to furthering my gym challenge.

It also cost near two-hundred poké. I stuttered when I was told that, though relented when I was told it covered the fees for my room, my food on board and the ticket itself. In addition to that, it also booked me a room on any boat headed to Slateport within the next week. It wasn't like I could eat money in the field. Though it meant that I was down to fifty poké left in my wallet, and cursed the fact. I was going to throttle Ayd when I next saw him.

* * *

I think I was the first person awake in the whole centre the next morning. My boat wasn't to leave until oh-eight hundred, and I had gotten up a little past oh-five hundred. I was awake that early that Loki was still asleep next to me, and Lacey was still asleep on the bed opposite.

The shower was already running in the bathroom, and I found that Xander hadn't moved from his spot at the bottom of it. I'd left it on for him the night before, knowing it would probably be a while before he would get to be in water again. I also figured it could simulate rainfall, and knew his species could get healthier in the rain.

Though he was that asleep, he didn't seem to bat an eyelid when I walked into the room. It meant I had to take a shower around him, which was, in no uncertain terms, extremely awkward.

Afterwards I saw down for a bit and tried to make a list of everything I knew was to happen. I could remember all the main events, like Sinnoh being wiped out by a volcano, but it was too far ahead. There wasn't much I could remember for the specific year that would happen. It gave me a headache to think so much, but I needed to get something. It was worse still that I didn't know where whatever I needed to change would occur, so I couldn't even focus on bit specific area. The best thing I could think of was that Pacifidlog would flood about eight months from then because the corsola colony they were built upon would migrate due to over-population.

I tapped my pen against the paper pad and shook my head. It didn't make sense that such an event would lead to the world's doom. Places flooded all the time, it didn't mean global war would occur because of it. If it turned out to be some sort of massive genocide, starting there, I could understand. But it was far too small, in my opinion, to cause any damage.

It took a good hour for me to think of only three more events from my history. Johto and Kanto would have a quarrel over wanting to have larger borders and the different pokémon they wanted to introduce to each region. Some small town in Sinnoh would suffer a virus outbreak similar to the ones occurring around me in Hoenn, though everyone would be evacuated quickly. Cinnabar Island in Kanto would suffer from the plates beneath it shifting, which would cause another volcano eruption large enough to wipe it and several close islands off the map.

None of it seemed large enough to cause global war. I hissed and shoved the paper pad back into my bag, and instead pulled out my pokédex and the guide I got from Jennifer and began flicking through them. I needed to know some more techniques my pokémon could use, and found that there was in fact, a great wealth of them. It even included details next to them of how long each pokémon would, on average, take to learn it.

I made a few small notes beside each of them in the guide, and highlighted the ones that sounded like they would be best for each of my pokémon. I liked the sound of Xander being able to hide himself in a thick mist, and apparently he would actually learn it naturally, given enough experience. One in particular shone out for Lacey, and I found myself wondering just how to teach her it. The main problem I found with the so called 'help' on teaching abilities the guides provided was just that they said each pokémon learnt techniques differently. Supposedly a torchic would learn how to breathe fire differently from a cyndaquil and so on.

All in all, it was a lot more work for me. But it made me think of Ayd's comment to me that everyone's pokémon performed differently, regardless of species. I realised that was probably down to how everyone brought them up and trained them, and decided it was probably better for everyone to have their own, unique pokémon, rather than a generic, overused creature with the exact same attacks.

I decided to talk to her about it later. It was a strange concept for me; being able to talk to my pokémon. I was used to the rather more infantile duo of Xander and Loki, who I was lucky with if they managed to understand even the gist of what I was saying. Lacey on the other hand seemed to understand everything, and while I couldn't actually get a conversation out of her, it was still nice to have some sort of interaction, knowing that the other person – or pokémon, in that case – could understand me.

I ended up waking them all up and explaining everything that was happening before taking them downstairs for a quick, Spartan breakfast. They didn't seem to complain much about it, and I could see that Lacey was beginning to appreciate having food given to her, rather than most likely foraging it like she used to have to do. Afterwards I called them all back to their balls and made way to the boat, with well over an hour to spare before it would be departing. My room was just a bit larger than a cupboard, and had barely any room to move around in aside from the twin beds either side of the room. A small bedside table separated them both, and the bathroom had no shower, only a bath, a tiny sink and a toilet.

I couldn't complain. It was better than sleeping rough on the ground, worrying about insects and all other sorts of things eating me in my sleep. Thinking about that made me realise I had to explain the concept of taking watch to Lacey, and winced at the thought of it. While I knew she wasn't going to kill me anytime soon, for fear of dying herself, I wouldn't have put it past her to murder Loki and Xander while they slept, and leave me mangled or suffering.

Regardless, I let them all out again, and quickly made the room feel extremely cramped. I made it clear to them – particularly Loki and Lacey – that they weren't to cause any trouble, otherwise I'd tie them to the back of the ship and let them swim behind it in the carvanha-infested waters. It got my point across.

I filled the bath up with cold water and let Xander have a swim round in it, even as Loki decided it was all a fun game and began trying to splash around in the water. Xander didn't seem to find it as fun as him, and sprayed him with a load of bubbles that all popped in his face. The sableye shrieked and leapt backwards, deciding instead to throw toilet water at him from a safe distance.

I winced. I wasn't going anywhere near Loki until he'd been cleaned.

Instead I turned away and left them, and decided to sit on the unoccupied bed in the room. Lacey was sat on the other, seemingly thinking as she watched out of the porthole on the wall. I figured it was either her making a show of ignoring me, or simply fascination at seeing the world from the inside of a ship. Or possibly both.

I coughed her name and waited for her to show me some attention. When she did, I shuffled a bit closer. "I found a technique I thought you'd like me to help you start to learn." She looked at me, and her eyes narrowed instantly. She didn't exactly hide the fact she didn't like me, and didn't hide her doubt I'd found something she'd want to learn. So instead she sneered and turned back to face outside the window once more.

I shrugged dramatically. "Alright, fine. If you don't want to learn how to poison things without plants, I won't help you."

I turned away and fought the urge to grin as I saw her head slowly crane back towards me. While she might not have liked me, she still seemed to respect the fact that I could help her. And if nothing else, I could manipulate that to make her stronger, and maybe make her have enough respect for me to obey her.

She grunted at me when I made no show of turning back to look at her, and did so once more to gain my attention. I moved back round to face her, and saw that she was sat on the bed, cross legged, as if she were a student about to learn. The thought of it made me chuckle nervously. I didn't exactly know how to teach her it, after all.

"It's a special technique called toxic," I told her, pulling on what I'd learnt. "You transfer deadly poisons into your opponent, which if left untreated can cause a load of symptoms, one of which is obviously death."

I resisted the urge to shudder at the delight I saw flare in her eyes. I needed to remember that she was a mass murderer, and would most likely love to find out information on how to kill things in a number of different ways.

"If you're to learn it, I'm only going to teach you how to administer non-fatal doses at first," I instructed her. "That way, we know how well it works, and we know that your body can cope with passing on the poison. If we started trying to do it fatally, it could end up just killing you before we even begun."

If nothing else, it was the truth. I didn't know just how to teach her it, and knew that the poison had to come from her own body. I didn't want to risk her overdosing on fatal amounts of poison before I'd even started teaching her – though I did have to admit, it would have been an ironic way for her to go.

I began to explain the basic concepts of it to her, and was quite amazed by how good a student she turned out to be. While she might not have liked me, she was able to put it all aside in order to learn. I was somehow proud of her in the moment I realised that, and knew that when I had her respect and like, she'd be a valuable asset.

More importantly, she'd be a good friend. It was still a foreign concept to me; having a pokémon as a friend, though I found myself looking forwards to actually being friends with her. It was more than she just seemed so much more intelligent that either of my other two pokémon, on the level that I could actually hold a conversation with her.

The ship lurched beneath us, and I heard all my pokémon cry out in alarm. I just smiled at them all and explained that it meant we were moving. I ended up getting them to follow me outside, and we stood on the deck outside our room, watching the sea pass us by underneath.

I still made sure to stay a few paces away from Lacey. She was a good student, but I doubted she'd have any problems about pushing me overboard.

I scowled and wiped my forehead, already feeling a slick line of sweat forming. My hair begun to drip, and I cursed the fact it was so hot. None of my pokémon seemed to mind, even Loki, who I knew preferred shadows and darkness. I cursed the fact I was enduring heat I hated just for their sakes, and found myself reflecting on a time when I would have just left them and moved on with my life.

I leant forwards on the railing and found my thoughts lost as I watched wingull soar around us and various aquatic pokémon swim at the water's surface.

I knew there would have been a time where, if Xander wasn't performing well enough, I would have ditched him and traded him instantly. The same with Loki, and probably Lacey too. The fact that I needed to train everything seemed to sway me into keeping them.

I thought about it more. If an experienced trainer like Ayd had offered to take them off my hands, and instead provide me with something more powerful, would I have taken it? I knew when I started my journey, I would have. However, by that time, I'd bonded so much with them all, I couldn't ever think of trading them in. Alongside that, I wondered if a truly experienced pokémon would actually obey me. With my horrible luck it would just murder me and then return to its old trainer.

I shook my head and only just caught Loki trying to steal something from a man's pockets. I managed to stop him in time, though succeeded in offending the man himself. He didn't appreciate the fact that I'd _stopped_ Loki from stealing something from him, and instead decided to shout at me for a full two minutes about how I should be training my pokémon better.

I made Loki steal from him when he walked away.

After the exchange, Lacey looked at me curiously. I simply smirked at her and turned to face the sea again. I felt Xander sit on my feet even as I began to speak to her. "Some people just need teaching a lesson," I explained, and saw her lean forwards to watch the sea from the corner of my eye. "I don't want you guys going around causing trouble at any opportunity, but if I agree that someone needs teaching a lesson, or if they just deserve it, I'm not going to stop you." I threw a sideways glance at her and lowered my voice to a whisper. "Which means you're not allowed to go around randomly killing people or pokémon. But if we agree that it's the best possible solution, like with the Elite, I'm not going to stop you." I smiled towards the sea. "And I'll even help to make sure you don't get caught."

I noticed that she smiled at that. I realised then that was probably the reason why I longed for her friendship more than any of my other pokémon's; we were almost exactly the same. I was a killer, and so was she. The only differences between us were our methodologies and our species.

I smirked to myself as a thought hit my brain. After saving the world, I could set up my own business venture; pokémon assassins. I was sure there were a few underground groups around the world that would hire assassins to kill people, and considered the niche in the market of hiring pokémon to do the job. I was certain a few would exist, but they would most likely be obvious choices; a weavile or a scythe, perhaps even a haunter or some form of a psychic.

Who would honestly expect a crack team of a ludicolo, shiftry and a sableye to be top-notch assassins? I could get a few more, 'normal' pokémon to help out, like maybe an ampharos or a jynx.

I shuddered at the thought. Jynx were creepy.

My pokémon noticed my shudder and looked to me in concern and alarm. I smiled at them and explained I was thinking about jynx. They looked at me as if I were crazy, and I realised the pokémon weren't native to Hoenn. They could only be found in cold caves or mountains, and I didn't have any plans to go searching for them.

Regardless, I felt like explaining the pokémon to them.

"Jynx are pokémon born out of dead human souls," I elucidated for them. "Back before humans built large towns, they used to worship a great number of different gods for every slight thing. The sun, the moon, even crops had a separate god. Thing is though, they used to make sacrifices to the gods; they'd slaughter animals, pokémon and people in order to appease their gods.

"In the colder places, they used to sacrifice women to the god of summer, in order for him to bring a sunny summer for their crops," I said, silently amazed I could remember it all. It really did show what reading a few random books before going to sleep could do to a person. "It was always blonde haired women, for whatever reason. They'd make them wear a long red dress, and they'd fit them with some sort of jewelled bra that simply framed their breasts – it didn't cover them. They would then be left to die from exposure to the cold.

"It would take a few centuries, but eventually their spirits would be able to return and form something that looked like their body when they died. The main difference is that their eyes are completely white, and their skin is a horrible shade of purple." I couldn't help but notice that Lacey was the most engrossed in the story, and I wondered how much it was to do with the fact she could completely understand me.

"-And it's said that they continue to haunt the locations of their death, eternally searching for a body to inhabit."

I started at the sudden voice. It was female and had the slight tinges of a Kantonese accent. I whirled round to find a face to the voice. She was an inch or two shorter than me, and had bright ginger hair that bounced around her face and fell to her shoulders. She wore a pair of light black framed glasses, and dressed completely in practical purple and black clothes. A few freckles complimented her cheeks, making her seem a little younger than her voice implied.

"You sure know your stuff," she said as she leant on the railing near me, and only smiled as Loki tried to sniff the air around her.

I smiled. "Well, I don't like to brag. In fact, why don't I-"

"-Hit on me and I'll castrate you with a rusty knife," she interrupted me with a deathly serious tone. I raised an eyebrow, unsure as to whether or not she was joking before she smiled at me. "So how do you know all that about jynx then?"

I didn't register her question, still shocked from the sudden change in tone. I debated to myself whether she was just bi-polar, or whether she was just crazy. Either way, I decided that _maybe_ it was a good idea to run away screaming from her. That was, until a woman rushed past us and knocked into her, and she screamed after her the very graphic ways that she was going to make her infertile with nothing more than a spoon.

It was funny when I wasn't on the receiving end of it, at least.

She looked back to me and offered a small smile as if nothing had ever happened. I began to consider that maybe she would be fun to hang around with, if only for the constant threats at people that weren't me, so I opted to go for the blunt route and asked her what the sudden threat to myself was about.

She smiled, though gave me a fierce look. "If all you're after is a quick peek at my tits and a five-minute fuck, do us both a favour and walk away."

She been burnt recently in the past, it was blatantly obvious.

Even still, I couldn't help but grin at her attitude. It was refreshing, at the very least. It also meant that I definitely wouldn't be the only one on the receiving end of it. "You're the one that came over to me," I pointed out. "So that makes me think _you're_ the one after a five-minute fuck."

She laughed and looked out to sea. "Touché. I was actually interested by the fact you know the myths surrounding jynx. They're not exactly well known outside of specialist pokémon-myth studies."

I chuckled nervously. I made the mental note to not use any of the information I'd learnt from my time in public spaces. Loki and Xander both seemed quickly disinterested in the girl, and Lacey seemed to glare at her with less hatred than she did me – which I still think was rather offensive.

I shrugged and gave her an honest, if not vague answer. "I like to know about pokémon. Who knows when you might need to know such obscure stuff? It could save your life."

She laughed and matched my gaze. "Well, I doubt you'll need to worry about jynx hijacking your body. They're all female."

I couldn't help but grin. "Knowing my luck, I'll encounter the one jynx on the planet that wants to be a man." She laughed once more. "Or, I'll get taken over by one that gets a gender-swap operation, whilst still in my body."

"Don't know why jynx would want to become human though," she said, voice thick with thought. "I mean, who would really want to trade in control over ice, and having psychic abilities?"

"Someone who got killed off to appease some god they probably didn't believe in?" I offered with another shrug.

"Good point," she conceded. "So you a trainer then?" she asked, eyeing my pokémon.

I nodded and introduced us all. Characteristically, Loki hopped around like an excited child – and I noticed him swipe a pair of earrings from her bag – whilst Xander seemed indifferent, and Lacey had outright scorn for us all.

"Just the one badge eh?" she asked, surprised. "You must have started quite late then."

I made the quick mental calculations. "About six weeks ago?" I shrugged and couldn't honestly remember it. "I'm not sure," I admitted. "I've just spent about two weeks in the Petalburg Woods; I'm still all over the place."

She winced. "Ouch. I remember going through Viridian Forest back when I was a newbie; it took me nearly a month to make it through." She shuddered and rubbed her arms. "Believe me, when you've just started out as a trainer, bumping into wild kangaskhan and pinsir is one of the last things you want to be doing."

I nodded, understanding completely. Granted though, I wasn't about to mention I'd narrowly escaped sceptile, as well as a swarm of wurmple, and then an ariados and a scizor.

"So is that nuzleaf what you started off with?" she asked me, nodding towards Lacey. "Most people tend to have a pokémon a while before they start off journeys."

I shook my head. "I only just caught her." I lifted up a foot a fraction, displacing Xander enough to make him croak. "I actually started off with Xander here."

"Huh," she grunted, seemingly evaluating us both by that one simple fact alone.

I crossed my arms. "So what did you start off with then?"

Her smile seemed to light up the deck. She grabbed a poké ball from her belt and clutched it tenderly a moment before she released the pokémon in the widest part of the corridor. The light eventually faded to form a tan furred quadruped that was only slightly smaller than me. Lighter, wispy fur collared round its neck, and small patches of light fur covered its lower back and its underbelly. Two large antlers stretched from its head, just below its ears, and they both had a large dark coloured spot nestled in each.

It stared at me with its long face and deep brown eyes, and I barely kept Loki from leaping at it in interest.

"I'm Mia-Louise," the girl introduced herself, and gestured towards the stantler. "And this is Charles."

The stantler snorted a small greeting at us, flicking its ears happily as Mia stroked its face. "He's not actually my starter though," she conceded, her smile fading. "I started off with one of the regional starters of Kanto, like most new trainers. I had a bulbasaur... but she died in the Viridian Forest, just after I caught Charles. So in essence, he's my first pokémon that's still alive."

"Sorry," I said reflexively. I waited for her to dismiss it before asking, "Charles?"

She grunted and looked at me. "What's wrong with Charles?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I just never would have thought it would fit a stantler."

Amazingly, she laughed and agreed. "Hey, I started off in Kanto about four years ago. I still had a young mind in regards to names. Originally, he was going to be named Snuggles."

I nearly choked on my spit. Snuggles... the stantler. I started to wonder if this girl was single, and if not, whether I should set her up with Ayd. Given that they had horribly weird names for their pokémon in common, I decided they'd get on like a house on fire.

"Snuggles the Dastardly," she furthered with a laugh.

I resisted the urge to bury my face in my hands. "She's a lunatic," I whispered to my pokémon. "I swear to whatever gods are up there, I attract them or something. I must sweat some sort of lunatic pheromone or something."

Her stantler vanished in a flash of light, and she began looking out to sea again. "Well, I've got to go look over my team," she told me, pushing herself off the railing. "Some of them need a run around, and no offence, but they're not going to get it whilst I'm talking to you."

I shrugged. "None taken."

"Catch you around then?" she asked before leaving. "You wanna meet up later tonight for some food or something? It'd be nice to have a friend or just someone to talk to on this journey."

I considered it a moment. Whilst she was a lunatic, she was right that it couldn't hurt for me to have another friend. I tried to count off my list of friends, and didn't even make it close to going over one hand. I couldn't call Jennifer one, neither could I really call Roxanne one, in total honesty. That just left Ayd. I winced at the thought. I had one friend in the whole of Hoenn.

"Sounds good," I told her. If nothing else, at least I could get a second friend in the whole of Hoenn.

* * *

I found out a few things during the boat journey, the most prominent being the Lacey got sea sick. Even after I helped her the best I could, she still seemed to outright hate me, and I left it at that.

Though I knew I couldn't fully trust her. The first night, when we sat down for some food with Mia – after she had told the waiter he was going to have to get the menu surgically removed from his colon if he kept staring down her top – out of nowhere Lacey brought myself and her drinks. I looked at her, unconvinced, and I'm sure there was respect and a hint of her being impressed in her eyes. She took the drink from me and tested it, as if to set my mind at rest.

When I drunk it however, my tongue was on fire!

I don't know what she'd put in it, but it was the spiciest damn thing I'd ever consumed! There was sick amusement in her face as she watched me take a sip, though I was determined not to let her beat me. My eyes were tearing up with the sheer heat and pain of the drink, but I made sure to drink the whole thing and thank her for it.

She didn't look amused.

She seemed even less amused when I got her back by spiking her drink with a laxative. I'd never seen a pokémon look so ill and shocked at once, though I found out that she knew how to use a toilet – even if it meant I couldn't use the one in our cabin for the whole two hours she was locked up in there.

Regardless, it was worth it.

I had to keep her in her ball for the rest of the journey, only letting her out for food, due to her getting sick with every large bump of waves. I was conflicted about it, knowing that keeping her out could let me get to know her better, and would help her evolution. But keeping her hidden away made sure she couldn't pull any pranks, or get sea sick or the like.

Besides, the day after, my tongue was still burning from the damned spicy tea.

I found out a few things about Mia during the time I'd spent with her. She was from Viridian City in Kanto, and started off as a trainer when she was fourteen. Supposedly it took her two years to complete the Kanto circuit, and then another two to complete the Johto circuit. She said she was starting off afresh, per say, in Hoenn, travelling only with her stantler until she caught Hoenn-native pokémon. Apparently she'd caught two pokémon already, and only had a team of three, but she wasn't letting me know anyone past her stantler.

Supposedly she was travelling to Dewford to compete in her third gym battle – she'd beaten those in Petalburg and Mauville with her stantler alone – and was trying to capture an aron – whatever that was.

She had a habit of constantly warning me not to hit on her for the first day, until I told her that I wasn't planning on having my testicles removed anytime soon. She seemed to appreciate my answer and continued as normal, as if she'd never threatened me in the first place.

She was weird.

But she was a good laugh. It was nice just to have another friend I could chat to – even if it was about aimless things such as where to go on our journeys, the stupid things our pokémon had done, or even just small pieces of our backgrounds that we didn't mind sharing.

It seemed to be an unwritten rule amongst trainers that you never revealed everything about your past, and you never pressed someone for it either. I appreciated it a lot, it meant that I could act normal, and not have to worry about telling them I could possibly be their grandchild or something.

_That_ thought hit me like a tonne of bricks. I had no idea who my grandparents where, and for all I knew, I could have bumped into them multiple times without realising. Hell, the kid with the machop Loki mauled could have been my grandfather!

It was too much to think about.

It got to the final day of the journey, and myself and Mia were sat on the uppermost deck, watching the distant island of Dewford come ever closer. They really spared no expenses on the boat; even on the top floor there was a small canopy with a bar and a large television that was updating everyone with all the latest news.

Supposedly they still hadn't caught the thieves responsible for all the Rustboro robberies, though apparently Roxanne had hospitalised someone that was stupid enough to try and rob the gym. I somehow grinned at the thought, knowing that she hit hard enough to not need a pokémon to take someone out.

Mia's stantler stood a few paces behind her, watching her like a silent protector. Xander was quite comfortably nestled on the pokémon's back, and every so often I would hear small grunts and growls as if they were talking to each other.

"It's a shame I don't have a big flier," Mia whispered as she stared out to sea. "Or even a wailord, or a lapras. It would be so much fun to just travel around on their backs, watching the world from a new perspective."

"You'd have to train them for it first," I said, grounding her dreams. "Personally, I don't want to be riding a pidgeot who just decides to drop me from a few thousand feet in the air."

She rolled her eyes at me and punched me in the arm. "Geez, aren't you just mister serious? Have you never _dreamed_ a little? You know, just let your imagination run wild and think of all the possible things you could do with pokémon?"

Yes actually, quite often I've wondered what ones would be best for killing someone in different ways. Quick, painless, slow, barbequed, sometimes even without any evidence whatsoever.

But just imagining what I could do with them?

"Not really," I answered her. "I've always been the sort of person that just takes life a day at a time."

"Psh," she grunted, waving a hand at me. "That's all well and good, but what happens if you die tomorrow?" She folded her hands behind her back and smiled to the sky. "You need to live everyday like it's your last. You need to be able to go to bed on a night and know that even if you don't wake up the next morning, you're proud of what you've done and who you've been."

I found myself amazed by her. She seemed so crazy at times, I never once thought there could be anything deep underneath it all. I just thought she was rather airheaded and a complete nutter. "So are you?" I asked her.

She laughed. "Fuck no. I don't plan to die anytime soon – I've still got the whole world to see!" She grinned and turned back to me. "Of course, if I do go soon, I'll try and see if I can make a deal with The Giratina or something. Give me unholy demon powers and a longer life in exchange for helping it take a few souls to the underworld." She shrugged. "Fair deal I think."

I shook my head. "You're mad."

"I'm _awesome_," she corrected me. "Mad people live in fear that the world won't accept them. Awesome people accept the fact that the world is just jealous of them."

I laughed. "And you don't sound at all arrogant or egotistic."

She was about to say something until a loud cry from the bar area interrupted her. We both glanced over there and found there was a crowd gathering, all staring at the television in equal silence. It took us a moment to walk over there, and a little more to find somewhere we could see and hear the television report.

"_...body has been identified,"_ the reporter was saying. It showed a man with a receding hairline, black hair and brown eyes, and he stared into the camera even as behind him the woods showed signs of movements.

"_Officials were called to the scene of Petalburg Woods in the early hours of the morning, after a pokémon ranger called in to report a dead body."_ My stomach flipped at his words, even with as much as I tried to convince myself it could just be anyone's body found. _"The body has been identified as Aaron Mattheis, Sinnoh Elite Four member."_

Everything descended into white noise as the gravity of it all caught up with me. I heard people gasp and cry out around me, and already people were spreading rumours. I forced myself to remain as stoic as possible, praying that I didn't somehow reveal the guilt I could feel flooding my veins. I knew I'd killed him for good reason, and knew that it was the best solution. But I'd never had to deal with the aftermath of killing a murderer before, much less one that no one knew was actually going around killing people.

My ears snapped back to reality as I heard the next few words from the television.

"_It is thought that Mr. Mattheis discovered an underground group that was responsible for the mass disappearances in the forest as of late. Reports are already coming in, detailing that tens, if not hundreds of silk cocoons have been found, each containing a rotting dead body within."_

There were more gasps and cries in the crowd. I remained as quiet as I could, knowing that piece of information already. I needed to know if they had any leads in the matter. If they suspected someone in particular, I needed to know if they resembled me in any way!

The reporter gathered himself a moment, possibly pausing for dramatic effect. Bastard. Why couldn't he just provide it all then and there?

"_There are almost no outward signs of trauma to Mr. Matthies, and his death is currently being treated as suspicious. A renowned trainer of his level would not have fallen victim to eating poisonous plants, or many other fates that befall novice trainers."_ I realised that the man wasn't reading from the autocue anymore. He was just giving his own opinion, covering it up as speculated fact to further his own opinion. And it was damn well making it seem like he'd been murdered! My plan rested on him being believed to have died accidentally!

"_For him to die in such a way, foul play must have been involved. Most likely a trainer with poisonous pokémon." _He cleared his throat and began to speak, though everything descended into white noise once more.

The damned news reporter was giving his opinion as fact. It was screwing up my plans – even if they were hastily made. If people thought he'd been murdered, no doubt there'd be a larger-viewed autopsy. It meant the other Elites wouldn't have been able to cover up his... _indiscretions_ to a degree they could have. It meant people would realise the Elites weren't actually fully protecting them, and there could be uproar.

I forced my head clear of such thoughts. I was over exaggerating everything. Most likely they would just reveal he had been poisoned, and then they would set up some criminal that they had been after for a while to take the fall for it all. It was the way corruption worked; maintain the purity of one, and dump the crimes on a publically hated figure.

I glanced at Mia and saw she was staring at me curiously. A horrible thought struck me: stantler couldn't read minds, could they? I didn't want to have to go round killing people to cover up my crimes, though couldn't risk having to be chased round the country by police.

"If even the Elite are being killed, that's not a good sign," I whispered, hoping that she wasn't thinking what I feared she was.

Thankfully she shook her head and sighed. "I can't say it is. You're just lucky you avoided that, you were in those woods a few days ago, weren't you?"

I nodded, gulping as discretely as I could. "Yeah, but they're a big place. I could have just skimmed past him multiple times and never known."

"True that," she conceded, placing a fist under her chin. "But it's strange that only one of his pokémon are missing, don't you think?"

My breath caught. One of his pokémon were missing? For the first time I was glad I sweated when it got slightly hot – it was covering up the nervous sweat I knew was wanting to pour out of me. "I zoned out of that part," I admitted, scared she was trying to lead me into a trap. "I was counting my lucky stars that wasn't me being reported on."

"I can understand that," she admitted. She nodded back to the television screen. "It was saying that they found all six poké balls on his possession, though only five were occupied. They think he set one loose before he died – maybe to bring down whoever killed him?"

I started entertaining horrible thoughts of humongous swarms of bugs chasing after me in my sleep. After that it was the scizor creeping into my room at night and ripping me apart, limb by limb until only my head and torso remained.

I shook my head to clear my mind of such thoughts. "You wanna go get something to drink somewhere quieter?" I asked Mia. "This is all everyone's going to be talking about for a while, and to be honest, I don't want to be sitting around listening to it. I'll end up going crazy entertaining thoughts that it could have been me."

"Sure," she said with a smile. "I was wondering why you looked a little freaked out by it all, but that explains it. I mean, there being an Elite found dead a little while away from where you were a few days ago?" She shook her head. "I can't imagine it."

The rest of the ship journey passed in a blur. We got into Dewford around fourteen hundred hours, and already the news had spread throughout the ship and town both. Everywhere was spreading rumours about the dead Elite, from stories of how he'd had his soul eaten by a ghost, to conspiracy theories about him being a Sinnoh spy.

It was all getting way out of control. People were panicking, and in doing so accusing him of trying to work against the Hoenn government. It made me panic that somehow I'd managed to cause something that would lead to global war.

I forced the thoughts aside. It wouldn't do me any good to go around entertaining them. Instead I resolved to stay for around a week in Dewford and let the news die down, and possibly try to figure out what I was going to do next.

The first thing on my list was to visit the Dewford gym. Like most trainers, Mia was going straight to the natural caves on the island, saying that she was going to explore them and catch herself a pokémon to train before going after the gym, as apparently fighting types had a deathly advantage over her stantler. I nodded and told her my plans, and we exchanged numbers before parting ways, deciding we would meet up when we were both on the mainland, rather than whilst we were still in Dewford – neither of us knew how long we'd be staying on the island.

The signs that pointed to the gym were thankfully easy to follow. I was impressed that I managed to find it on my own, and silently celebrated the fact. It proved to me that I could get around places without needing people's help.

Dewford itself was a beautiful seaside town, and everything was built on the hills overlooking the beaches and sea both. Everywhere offered picturesque views of either the beach or the rainforests on the other end of the island. It was nothing short of a tropical resort, and even I could appreciate the magnificence it brought – even if I found it far too hot. The main thing I wanted to do then was hide in the sea or a cold, cark cave.

The gym itself looked no different to that in Rustboro, and was still a large, domed building, though didn't have the rock gardens decorating the outside. Inside it looked rather the same as that in Rustboro, though this one had a reception desk, at least. Instead of the smell of fresh dirt, this gym smelt of both pokémon and human sweat. I could see that several rooms were left in complete pitch-black darkness, and I could hear people training in there.

There was a little old lady that sat at the desk, talking away on the phone with a look of irritated concentration on her face. Even at a distance, I could see that the woman had muscles – perhaps more than me! At least she enforced the image that the gym was full of fighting specialists.

I smiled at her when I approached, and she greeted me with a nod and mouthed for me to wait a moment. I could see her getting gradually more annoyed with the person on the phone, and bit my lip to stop myself from laughing when she smashed it back down on the desk in anger.

"Sorry about that," she apologised instantly, offering me a small smile. "Welcome to the Dewford gym. Is there any way I can help you?"

Tell me how you've got such _huge_ muscles?

"I'd like to challenge the gym, please," I said, trying to be as polite as I could. While there was the general rule to respect someone's elders, I also abided by the rule of respecting someone that looked stronger than you. She looked like she could bench press me and the weights both.

"Certainly dear," she said, smiling all the more. She swivelled around in her chair, placing herself in front of the computer screen. "I've got an opening two days from now at two p.m., if that suits you?"

Two days training seemed more than enough after two weeks in the woods. I also had Loki, who I knew wouldn't be able to be hit by most fighting pokémon. If it came to it, Xander could just keep his distance, or I could just send out Lacey and let her get smacked until she decided to beat her opponent to a pulp – it wasn't like she would listen when I told her to attack.

"That's perfect," I told her with a smile of my own. She took my details quickly and printed me off a small slip that gave me a three night, free stay at the pokémon centre. It meant if I did stay for a week, I'd have to get some money. I also had to get some more to pay for everything I'd need in Slateport, as well as supplies for whilst I was in Dewford. I was running low on everything.

Most importantly, toilet paper. It doesn't matter what every other trainer tells you the one thing you need for different scenarios is, the main fact is that whilst you're travelling, toilet paper is like gold. When someone desperately wants some, you'd be amazed at the lengths they'd go to, and the amount of money they'd pay all for a little bit of it.

I thanked the woman and left the gym, following the signs to the pokémon centre as I thought about it. I would have to challenge some trainers around my level to get some money – I couldn't very well kill someone and rob their corpse again. Well, I could, but I decided that perhaps one murder was enough.

Besides, if it came to it, I could always have Loki rob some trainer when they weren't looking.

I made way to the pokémon centre fairly quickly, and managed to get the nurse working reception to recommend me some travel sickness pills for Lacey. She explained it wasn't uncommon for pokémon to get seasick, though often times it would be fire, ground or rock pokémon, rather than grass. I thanked her when she gave them to me, and then once more when I found out they were free, since I was a trainer. I booked into my room and considered how I would get Lacey to take the pills as I made my way to my room.

I swiped the card into the lock and let myself in, smiling at the familiarity of the room. It seemed they were all the same, no matter what town they were in. I supposed it was for the best, four floors of rooms probably meant that they spent a fair bit of money on just maintaining them. I was just thankful that I hadn't been forced to share a room with another random trainer.

I stopped and watched out of the window, noticing how tame the town was in comparison to Rustboro. Despite the harsh heat, I shuddered, feeling something cold descend down my spine. It was an eerie feeling, like I was being watched or something.

Paranoia flooded me as I checked every inch of the room for something, someone, or even a small camera. I found nothing. I considered it to be nothing more than my imagination as I looked from the window again, marvelling in the beauty of the seaside town.

I should have realised beauty only hides the ugly horrors buried beneath.


	19. Dewford

**Author's Note:** Hello everyone. Just another quick reminder; the story's going to be bumped up to an 'M' rating come the next chapter. There's certain events that happen in it that won't let the story pass for a 'T' rating anymore, which leaves me no choice but to increase the rating. If you're following this story, please make sure to make a mental note of this fact. Thanks to everyone that's reading this, and as always, don't hesitate to let me know what you think, positive or negative.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

**_Regret_  
**

**Dewford**

**

* * *

**_Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment ~_ Will Rogers

**-O-O-O-**

_"Gardevoir are a mysterious pok__é__mon __that have full control over their psychokinetic abilities. With the smallest thought, they can make anything and everything blow up in astounding explosions. There are many interpretations of the creatures, all from various stories given by people through the ages, most of whom have been enticed by the creatures as they try to complete their instinctive worship. The 'dress' they wear is actually made from the skin of various different creatures, both __pok__é__mon __and human alike. Whilst most gardevoir consider this to be a sacred act, and will kill their victim quickly and painlessly, or even seek out a recently deceased victim large enough to skin, there are some of their species that will carry out such actions whilst their victim is still alive. The only difference between genders that has been noted is that female gardevoir warp the skin into what is compared to a ballroom gown, where as the males form what appears to be a long cloak.  
_

_Gardevoir, like humans, have a variety of different emotional states, and are capable of free-thinking, like most human-like __pok__é__mon, as well as humans themselves. A human-like __pok__é__mon can make the decision to murder __pok__é__mon for fun, or even for sadistic enjoyment. Of course, there are cases outside of these, but those are few and far between. It has been noted, however, that when a gardevoir is a trainer __pok__é__mon, it will fall in love with it's trainer if treated well enough, regardless of the gender of both __pok__é__mon and trainer. Such bonds give way to their sacrificial nature towards their trainers, and the grief they feel when a trainer dies lets them exploit their psychic abilities to their full potential. Often, if a trainer has died and a gardevoir goes on a rampage, it takes up to ten powerful trainers to subdue and kill it, and often the trainers lose every __pok__é__mon they used to fight it._

_Before Gardevoir evolved to use psychic abilities, they would use the long claws on the ends of their hands to peel skin from flesh. Some small clans still maintain such practices, whereas most will now use their psychic abilities for such. For a long time, it was thought that their actions, as well as their arousal towards the peeling of flesh and splattering of blood showed that they were creatures of darkness. It has been proved they are not, though they do retain some instinctive urges that are quite similar to their dark brethren. _

_The long, extendible jaw they have makes them seem similar to snakes, though is actually an adaptive process from when they were preyed upon by gallade, alakazam and gengar, among others. Gardevoir need to eat large amounts of food in order to get the energy they require, though often had to abandon a meal part-way through when they were being hunted. More often than not, they would die of starvation. Eventually a few evolved to have large jaws, allowing them to consume more in shorter times, letting them eat enough food whilst still being able to flee readily from predators. Many myths surround their mouths, as they are lined with sharp fangs all designed to rip flesh from bone. It is said that if a gardevoir ever presses it's mouth against you, every time you close your eyes you shall feel it's mouth against you again, for months to come._

_Like many psychic __pok__é__mon, gardevoir are capable of psychokinesis, telepathy, image projection, as well as precognition. A well trained gardevoir can see as far into the future as their abilites will allow, though will most often never share what they see with another soul. It is said that once they see far enough into the future, a vision of The Dialga itself appears to them and warns them off sharing what they have seen. Instead, they will provide soft little nudges to people, guiding them away and towards certain things the gardevoir know shall happen._

_In addition, they are also capable of using multiple elements to their advantage, when trained enough. A trained gardevoir can bend electricity, fire, ice and even exploit ghostly energies to attack._

_But despite all this, gardevoir are actually not one of the most powerful __pok__é__mon there are in existence. However, given their appearance, many people fear them as 'demons', and will go out of their way to avoid or even kill these creatures._

- A guide to Hoenn's native Pokémon, by E.G. Alerce. _(23rd International Edition)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The few days whilst I was waiting for my gym battle passed rather quickly, as if they never happened at all. In the time I managed to battle a few trainers along the Dewford coast and earn myself some money, but nothing really eventful happened.

Though everyone was still talking about Aaron, the Elite's death. It was starting to make me all the more paranoid, and I was certain someone or something was following me wherever I went. I explained everything that happened to Lacey, but she didn't seem to care about the situation one bit. It wasn't like pokémon could go to prison, after all.

It was the morning of my gym battle when I was walking towards the gym, and found myself stopped by one of the electronics stores with televisions in the windows. They were playing a great load of different shows, though the news channel caught my eye.

I couldn't hear anything, but the text on screen told me all I needed to know. They had performed an autopsy on him, and had discovered that his mouth and throat had all swollen up because of a strange chemical. They suspected foul play.

I was in and out of a nearby shop before I even realised what was happening. It took me a moment to realise exactly what was happening, though I recoiled as I came to attention and found an unlit cigarette in my mouth.

I yelped and batted it away, wondering just how I managed to phase out and still purchase a pack of them, and a lighter too. My hands were still shaking, and I began to stare at the cigarette tossed on the floor.

It had been three years since I had quit, or more three years since I was reprimanded so much that I never wanted to go near one again. I had taken up smoking at about thirteen, using it to calm my nerves. It wasn't to look cool or anything of the like – I had heard the adults talking about how it made them less stressed, and tried one myself. After that, I was hooked.

Three years cold turkey, almost ruined by unconscious thought. I stuffed the lighter in my pocket and the cigarettes in my bag, considering the possibility that I may be able to sell them later on to someone.

I decided then that I needed to get away from people for a while. I knew the island had a network of caves known collectively as Granite Cave, and remembered Jennifer telling me I should go explore them in order to help myself understand Loki. I figured I could spend a day or two exploring them, and then head straight towards the boat to Slateport, avoiding any sort of news on the Elite along the way.

As long as I didn't have to hear about it, it was out of my mind.

I arrived at the gym early, with a good ten minutes to spare before my battle time, and began going over everything that could play out in my mind. I knew the gym leader specialised in fighting pokémon, which meant that Loki would be great to use, and Lacey not so much.

My musings were cut short when I heard someone call my name. I jumped to my feet and found myself facing a man about my height and with roughly the same build as me. His hair reached his shoulders and was a bright, sky blue, and only the tiniest amount of brown roots showed that he dyed it. His eyes were also a bright blue, and he wore nothing but a pair of dark blue training bottoms. His whole body glistened with sweat, and I wondered just whether or not he had been living in the gym before he came to collect me.

"Alright dude," he greeted with me a smile as I walked up to him. Instantly he stuck his hand out. "Name's Brawly. I'm the leader here, and I'm the bloke you've gotta beat to get the Knuckle Badge."

Like Roxanne, he gave me a quick tour of the gym's emergency exits and the like before he led me into the arena. It was no different to that in Rustboro, complete to the size of the stadium and the podiums at either end, except I noted there weren't any rocks on the battlefield. If anything, the battlefield was completely plain, save for the white lines marking it. All around the side there were weights and gym equipment, and people were still using it even as we walked towards it.

"Alright dudes, move out!" Brawly yelled with a clap of his hands. "This bloke here's challenging for a gym battle, so y'all know the rules. Move your asses before they're handed to ya!" He laughed at the quick scattering of everyone before turning back to me. "So ya ready mate? Ain't too late to back out now."

I gave him a grin. "I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"Oh-ho!" He laughed and clapped me on the back. "We got a confident one 'ere! And with only one badge to boot!" He smirked and wiped his thumb across his teeth. "Something tells me I might be taking you down a peg or two today mate."

I smiled at him, though said nothing. His attitude was infectious, and I found myself with the same cocky demeanour he exuded. All around us the people living the ring-side gym climbed into the stands, eager to watch the match that was making them move from their training.

I looked at them and felt a pang of nervousness. My first battle only had Ayd as an audience member. This had at least thirty muscular men and women who each looked like they could snap me in half without any effort whatsoever.

I breathed and put the thought aside. If I made it to the league, I would have to battle in front of a large crowd, regardless. My podium raised up into the air slightly as did his, and the bars locked into place before he said anything.

"Alright dude, you're challenging me today for Dewford gym's Knuckle Badge!" he shouted across the field. "I'm gonna be usin' three 'mons, you're allowed to use up to six! Battle's over when one of us has all his 'mons knocked out or killed. Go outside the boundary lines, and you've lost that round. Attack me or anyone else watching-" he flashed a confident grin. "Well, alongside losin' your licence, it wouldn't be the smartest thing to do. You got all that?"

"Loud and clear!" I shouted back.

"Great!" He beamed and pulled a poké ball from the stand he stood on. "Best of luck mate!" he yelled before he flung his ball into the field. It burst open with violent energy, and left a steady stream of white energy in its wake even as it bounced back into his hand. The light formed into a demonic looking pokémon about two feet in height with withered skin. Its head and feet where both a dull, mottled grey, and the rest of its body was an aged shade of blue. Its head looked rather like the bulb of an onion, and two, dark, sunken black eyes stared out from underneath. Its nose was flat and pushed up, and its chest was thin enough to showcase its ribs clearly.

It hissed at me, and I found a little smile work its way onto my face. Meditite, a pokémon that survived on meditation and water alone. It could be powerful, but it had ample weaknesses to make up for it. Like the fact that its ears held a great number of advanced nerves, or that its skin over its chest was a lot thinner due to the starvation it forced itself to go through.

I called out Loki in exchange. He looked around the battlefield, and upon noticing the meditite, gargled a strange laugh and rubbed his hands together in plotting.

Brawly placed his hands on his hips and sighed as if he had fought this battle a thousand times. "Race in and burn it!"

To my shock, the pokémon suddenly stopped floating in midair and dropped onto its feet. With alarming speed it raced at Loki, and I only just caught the fact that its fists were actually on fire!

Fire or not, I figured it wouldn't matter if it couldn't hit him. I shouted, "Loki, jump away!"

Across the field, Brawly smirked. "Identify it!"

I blinked at him and barely saw his pokémon's eyes shine a bright, bloody red. I had no idea what it meant, though as soon as Loki disappeared, the fighter whipped round and smashed his flaming fist into a spot where there was nothing but a shadow. The shadow shrieked and went flying back, and my heart dropped as Loki bounced across the floor, hissing all the while.

He growled and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, snarling at his opponent. He caught sight of the haunting red eyes of it, and seemed to figure out what it was quicker than I could. He growled something in tongue unintelligible for me, though the meditite reacted instantly, shouting and racing towards him again.

This time, Loki was prepared. Every swipe the pokémon made Loki avoided with ease, bending backwards or simply sidestepping to avoid it. However, all the while he was being pushed back further to the boundaries, and I knew soon enough he would cross over them.

"Force it back!" I yelled at him. "Knock it away!"

He cackled with delight and punched the pokémon square in the face. It recoiled, shrieking anger before it tried to punch him again, though this time Loki caught it _in_ his jaws. He bit down, hard, and blood began to trickle from its wound.

I gulped and feared he would lose control again. "Knock it away!" I screamed again, hoping it wasn't too late.

Brawly just smirked and folded his arms. "Reverse it."

I barely managed to take glance at his smug expression before Loki hissed again, shaking the meditite's arm in his grip. He released it and reared back, leaping forwards with deadly intent, claws as sharp as anything. His opponent saw it coming. It growled at him and caught him by both arms, using his own momentum against him before it smashed him into the ground.

I winced at the sound. The meditite didn't back down, and I saw it rear back and kick Loki in the head, even as he was down. I knew pokémon battles were brutal, though this was on another level. While I had heard that some specific pokémon went into blood thirsts, I had never considered that fighters were brutal simply by nature. It reared back to kick again, though this time I screamed an order for Loki to confuse it.

I heard his cackle moments before I saw his arm grab the meditite's leg. It screeched at some unseen threat and then shuddered, dropping its head limply. The movement gave Loki enough time to get to his feet, and he raked his claws deep into its face before he punched it – below the belt. Given the way the pokémon crumpled, I had to hazard a guess that it was male.

Maybe not any longer, given the force Loki punched it with.

The meditite reared up again, and I could hear Brawly shouting at it to jump and kick. But nothing was working, as I saw a faint purple glow in its crossed, glowing red eyes. It screeched a moment before it smashed its face against the floor, and there was a horrible crunching noise on impact. It reared its head up again, and smashed its face into the floor again, and I could see the blood spilling out of its nose like there was no tomorrow.

Loki looked completely bewildered. He didn't know what to do now his opponent was attacking itself, and stayed in his stupefaction until I told him to attack its chest. He ran up to the creature and kicked it hard in the ribs, and I heard something break as it rolled along the dirt floor, breathing bloody bubbles from its nose and mouth both.

Brawly evaluated his pokémon a moment and then recalled it back into its poké ball. "Well done mate," he praised me, offering a large grin. "Nice goin' there. You're little critter's a right little fighter, ain't he?" He smiled once at Loki, then at me before he grabbed another ball from his podium. "But good luck against this one!"

He tossed the ball forwards, and white light exploded out of it like a bomb had gone off. It formed a pokémon barely taller than Loki, though it was covered completely in light beige fur. Only its hands and feet were brown, as was the type of its tail. It bounced around, screeching wildly, and it looked completely simian aside from the pig-like nose and the glaring red eyes.

Mankey, I identified it at once. Prone to violent anger outbursts, yet have the power and offenses to back it up. Their only real weaknesses were their noses or their tails, and hitting either of them meant pissing the creature off more than you would normally by hitting it elsewhere.

Brawly gave a nod towards it. "Identify it!" he barked.

The same haunting red glow poured out of the screaming mankey's eyes, and I found myself wondering just what exactly the move did. It didn't take me long to figure it out as it suddenly leapt at Loki and smashed a fist into the trickster's face, making him howl in pain.

I cursed. It made his fighters able to hit ghosts! There went my advantage!

"Get its sides!" I yelled at Loki.

Again Brawly folded his arms and barked, "Reverse it!"

It was part of his strategy, I realised. I saw his mankey dance back a step as Loki raced forwards, and just as his claws raked the pokémon's side, the monkey span round with the blow and kicked him on the back of the skull. Loki hissed and went flying, and I flinched at his cries of pain.

But he proved his will to fight again as he leapt to his feet as the mankey raced back towards him. He cackled and danced around blows, and I realised then, truly, that Loki was brilliant offensively, but he always let the opponent attack and put themselves in danger. It was my constant ordering for him to take the offence that was leading to be his downfall.

"Get it's face!" I screamed at him. "Wait for an opening and get its eyes!"

I barely saw him nod as he ducked under a wild swipe from the creature. It kept screeching wildly as it tried to attack Loki, and every time he just barely inched around the blow. It took until the mankey tried to punch him low that Loki leapt over his blow and raked his claws across the mankey's face, leaving deep, bleeding gashes in his wake.

Unfortunately, he caught its nose.

The mankey screamed wildly and thrashed on the spot. Its nose was torn open, and blood was trickling down from its head and into its eyes. It was only making it more angry. The thing went wild and chased after Loki with murderous intent, not hearing even Brawly's orders for it to calm.

I winced. Nothing could stop a mankey's rampage, save for knocking it out or killing it. I hoped for the former as I called for Loki to confuse it. The moment he stopped to try and concentrate, the mankey was upon him, and kicked him with powerful force across the arena. It continually chased after him, repeating the process until Loki struggled to get back to his feet again.

I flinched at every blow, angered and fearful that I couldn't recall him in time. Each blow was accompanied by the large, loud echoes of flesh attacking flesh, and I could see blood drooling out of Loki's mouth as he collapsed on the floor. I recalled him as quickly as I could, which only managed to irate the mankey further.

It leapt around the pitch, shrieking wildly, screaming for an opponent. I glanced at Brawly, wondering just whether or not he was going to recall it.

"Your move mate," he told me. "The little critter's angry, but it's no different to how he would be in the wild. I'm not recallin' him anytime soon."

I grimaced. I didn't have plans to ever meet an angry mankey in the wild, much less one that had been trained and was thus more powerful. Added to that, Loki was my main hope for the battle. Since he was down and out, I decided to go for something of a gamble.

I tossed a poké ball forwards, and out of it appeared Lacey, looking as unimpressed as ever. She glanced around the arena, shot everything and everyone a dirty look, and then focused an even dirtier one on me.

I pointed behind her. "Focus your aggression on that."

She pulled back her lip into a sneer at me, then turned to face her opponent. Instead she found herself with a face-full of angry mankey, shrieking and hollering as it punched in the face.

I knew it would manage to hurt her some – more than Loki did – but knew it wouldn't be enough to take her down, only to anger her.

I was right.

It was like everything seemed to stop for a moment as Lacey uttered a single syllable growl. The mankey turned to her face her suddenly, and I could see fear in its beady little eyes. The leaves covering her hands shone deathly sharp in the light, and she hissed before she raked them both upwards, covering herself and the battlefield in blood.

The mankey screamed in pain like I'd never heard before. Below, the top few inches of its tail twitched on the floor, still bleeding. Lacey gave the creature a dark smirk and picked it off her face by the scruff of its neck. I just managed to scream at her not to kill it before she dropped it and kicked it like a football. The mankey screeched as it flew through the air, and I was nothing but impressed by the distance Lacey managed to kick it. Her beady yellow eyes focused it with one more glare before she folded her arms and turned away from it.

The mankey didn't seem to want to do anything more to anger the violent nuzleaf. Instead it continued to wail in pain, clutching at the bleeding end of its tail until Brawly called it back into its ball.

"Well, uh..." he stammered as he stared at the remains of his mankey's tail. He looked at it, then at Lacey, to me and then to the poké ball in his hands. "Thanks for... not killin' it, I guess." He shook his head and composed himself, clearing his throat before he grabbed another ball from his podium. "Well mate, count yourself lucky with those past battles! This critter's gonna give you a run for your money!"

He flung his last pokémon forwards, and I found the pokémon he released instantly familiar. It was a machop, and it growled at Lacey, flexing its muscles arrogantly. I inwardly hoped that this machop would meet a better fate than the one Loki had fought.

Brawly grinned and clenched his fists. "You know what to do. Chop it!"

"Trip it up!" I yelled at Lacey. She had other ideas. She stood there, arms folded in rebellion even as the machop raced forwards. I saw it raise a hand to attack her neck, and at the last moment she simply sidestepped it and let it continue running.

I felt my cheeks turn pink, convinced everyone was looking at me. She was my pokémon, and she was disobeying me, and I felt like it was a cardinal sin at that moment.

"Burn it!" Brawly barked. The machop growled and raced forwards again, his fists engulfed in flame once more. Yet again Lacey spared him little more than a sideways glance before she stepped around it, letting it run ahead again.

I gave up trying to command her after the third try. Instead I just told her to dodge each attack, if only for some semblance of looking like I was in control. Instead it earned me nothing but a dirty look from her, though she continued to spare the machop almost no effort.

It was having an effect. The machop was getting angry, as was Brawly. I could see them both clenching their fists, breathing deep and fast.

"Pound it into submission!" Brawly screamed at it. This time the pokémon raced forwards, and when Lacey moved to sidestep it, it reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She cried out in alarm, yelping as the fighter rounded on her, punching her in the face and chest.

I heard her growl, and cried out for her to swipe it off her. Instead she hissed and bit down on its face, tearing a chunk out of its cheek. The brawl quickly turned brutal, and the machop began punching wildly at her chest, aiming to break a rib as its face streamed blood. Lacey's razor tipped leaves raked across its arms and chest both, spilling out yet more blood between them.

The machop screeched and wrapped its arms around Lacey's neck, trying in vain to pull her down. She hissed and kicked in the back of the shins, making it drop as she wrapped her own arms around it.

Our pokémon were brawling in nothing more than joint headlocks. I saw Lacey pull at the crests on the machop's head and gnaw at its arm, even as it tightened its grip and tried to pop her head off.

"Burn it!" Brawly screamed once more. I saw the machop's fists burst into flame, and heard Lacey shriek as the fire raced down her back. She snapped her body up in pained alarm, and I saw her eyes darken even as her arms tightened around the machop's neck.

"Lacey, no!" I screamed at her.

It was too late. She kicked the machop's legs from under it again, and this time it fell to the floor. Her hands tightened around its head, and there was a sickening crack as she snapped its neck.

The machop dropped to the floor, neck bent backwards, a slow, deathly gurgled groan escaping its lips. Lacey stepped back and brushed herself down just as the pokémon died at her feet.

Deafening silence surrounded us entirely. Everyone stared at the middle of the arena, all in shock at the dead machop. Lacey huffed at her fallen foe and turned away scornfully, folding her arms indignantly. I had to wonder just whether any pokémon had died in the gym before. Brawly did mention a battle was over when a person's pokémon were dead... but why were they acting so strangely to it?

Brawly recalled the pokémon with no visible expression. I saw the poké ball dim, and turn a mixture of black and grey. Brawly looked at it a moment, closed his eyes and whispered something before he looked back to me with a small, fake smile. "Well done dude," he shouted, and pressed a button for the podiums to descend. I recalled Lacey as quickly as I could, figuring her presence in the arena probably wasn't making people like me any more than they already did.

I met Brawly in the middle of the battlefield, and he grinned and shook my hand, leading me back out of the arena.

"I'm really sorry about your machop," I said to him once we'd left the arena.

He shook his head. "It's alright dude. Like it says in the rules; you can win a battle with your opponent's 'mon dying. It's just been a _long_ time since anyone managed to kill one of mine."

I nodded and tried to say nothing about it. "But it's still hit everyone hard. Maybe I shouldn't have used Lacey back there."

He whirled on me and met my gaze, his eyes burning with emotion. "Look dude, never, _ever_ sit there and regret the things you've done. Everything happens for a reason, alright? You'll go crazy thinking about things that could have been if you did everything a little differently." He pressed a hand onto my shoulder and looked away. "Trust me on that mate, I've had my fair share of experiences that I wished I could have done differently."

I nodded and followed him in silence. In my mind, I was worried he was going to lead me somewhere with a big group of his cronies waiting, all eager to get their revenge on me for killing his machop. Instead he lead me into what had to be his office, given the large amount of papers and the computer. Although, in the room there was a surfboard hung up on the wall, and a set of weights in the corner.

He grinned as he saw me look at the surfboard. "You a surfer?"

I chuckled and shook my head. "Nope." The closest to surfing I had ever come was the swimming training I had when I was growing up, and that was simply being thrown into the water when you were a kid. The only thing that resembled surfing in that was that the weaker swimmers all clung to floating rafts for their lives. "Never really tried it," I said.

He stared at the board himself a moment. "Been a surfer all my life. I've always loved bein' out there, tamin' the waves."

"Why did you become a gym leader then?" I asked him.

He turned to face me and grinned. "Always liked the thought of runnin' my own gym. Means livin' here, I can go out into the surf as often as I like. Sides," he said as he dropped into his computer chair and placed his hands behind his head. "The chicks all seem to dig the fact you're a gym leader."

I laughed at his reasoning. When he asked me for my pokédex and trainer card, I handed them over, standing and watching as he went through the options on his computer. It seemed he was a lot less computer literate than Roxanne, as every so often he would curse and hit the side of the monitor. I hoped it wouldn't damage either of my items currently in the computer.

"Blasted thing," he growled at it. "If I didn't have to know how to use it for my job, I swear I wouldn't ever use one."

I laughed. "Not good with computers?"

He cursed once more and craned his head to look at me. "Got that right. I can use them, I just don't _like_ usin' them." He scowled and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not really helpin' the stereotype that fighters have no brains, am I?"

"Not particularly," I answered honestly. At the back of my mind, the questions towards fighters began to build up. I wondered whether or not I should actually ask him, given that my pokémon had just killed one of his, but I figured it was probably the best time. Alongside that, he didn't seem to mind about it much, so I figured he was either used to it, or had never really bonded with it. "So is it a problem all adapted fighters have?"

He shook his head. "Nah, just me mate." He leant forwards to click the mouse, though did a double take and spun in his chair to look at me. "Just _how_ do you know about that?"

I had the feeling I would be using the explanation a lot. "I'm partially ice adapted," I answered him. "Well, maybe. I can't say for sure. I have no one I can confirm it with, so it's all just theories at the moment."

He laughed and brushed his hair backwards with a hand. "Well, at least I know how you got the smarts about them. I'm not supposed to share that information freely, but no one seems to mind when it's shared with another adaptee." He grinned at me, reclined in his chair and placed his feet on the desk in front of him, hands behind his head again. "Fighters have stronger muscles than most. Where a normal person can lift a pound, we can lift a pound and a half with the same effort." He gave me a once-over. "You and me are about the same sorta build. But whatever you can lift, I can do that and half again. My muscles are stronger than normal people's so I can take blows a lot better than most can.

"But we've obviously got disadvantages," he said with a small frown. "Because our muscles are so advanced, they can wear out quicker than normal. If we don't constantly use them, we develop muscle atrophy really quickly. Plus we get a lot angrier than most people, and half the time just forget what we're doing and go into a frenzy – kinda like the mankey you saw earlier." He grinned, leant back a bit further and winked at me. "So come on then dude, gonna share what you know? Leaders are only allowed to know about their own adaptation, unless another tells 'em about theirs."

I blinked at him. I would have thought they knew it all, in order to make sure they were the best in their field. I considered though, that they were all specialists, so only really needed to know everything about their chosen pokémon. Learning about others would probably distract them, so on some level, it made sense.

"Don't know all that much," I admitted with a shrug. "I feel the cold less, but feel the heat more. Aside from that, I don't know anything."

Brawly's face fell. "Bummer." He sighed and shook his head before he glanced back to the computer, and cheered as it finished processing my items. "Finally!" he exclaimed. "I was afraid I'd have to call in someone again." He threw a glare at the machine as he handed me back my pokédex and trainer card, and I noticed a second badge now on the back of the card. "Blasted things."

I laughed and placed them both away. "I can't tell you much more about ice adaptation, though I can give you a bit of advice." He looked at me, one brow higher than the other, obviously disbelieving. "You can easily tell you dye your hair."

He scoffed. "Well, duh. Who honestly has this colour hair naturally? It's a pain in the ass to keep dyin' it and my eyebrows, but I don't like havin' it brown. Makes me feel normal," he said with a theatrical shudder.

I laughed and pointed to his arms. "Your armpits still have brown hair. If nothing else, you look a bit confused."

His eyes widened and he lifted an arm to check. "Ah... hell!" he cursed, throwing them down theatrically. "I am _not_ about to start dying those too! Means I've gotta start shaving there as well!"

I didn't want to ask where else he shaved. In fact, I was slightly worried he was sharing the information with me anyway. Instead I thanked him for the battle, and once more apologised for what happened to his pokémon.

"No worries mate," he said as he walked me back to the main room. "Like I said, it happens to the critters every so often. I can't expect to be a gym leader and never have any of them die, but it's still a shock to have it happen." His eyes glistened in the light, and I saw him scrunch them shut quickly. "Best thing I can do is bond with them all and enjoy the time I have with each and every one of them. I might not be a travelling trainer anymore, but my 'mons are still as likely to die as they were even back then."

I filed the information away. It seemed that no matter where you were in the world, your pokémon and you were always likely to die. It showed how strong trainers were, given that they could endure their pokémon dying on them, and simply pick themselves back up and move on.

"Thanks again," I said as he stopped in the main room.

"Eh, no worries mate," he replied, shaking my hand once more. "You're a good battler. Give yourself enough time to get that nuzleaf of yours under control, and it'll be ripping your opponents apart piece by piece." He smiled and clapped me on the arm. "Now get goin' to the centre and heal your 'mons up. I'm gonna use the healing facilities here, and do the paperwork for the battle." He groaned and folded his arms, dropping his head a moment. "The hidden joys of being a gym leader. Anyway," he said as his head snapped back up. "Good luck with your journey. If you're ever in Dewford again, hit me up for a rematch, alright?"

I nodded. "Count on it." He grinned once more and left me to see myself out of the gym, and I saw that as he walked away, a small group of girls about my age followed him with their eyes, giggling and whispering between themselves.

Well, he did say being a gym leader helped him in that regard, though I had the feeling it was more to do with the fact he walked around in nothing but a pair of training sweatpants, showing off his muscles for all to see. I considered whether or not I should try it, just to see if I got the same effects.

I snorted to myself as I stepped back into the tropical heat of the island. I'd most likely end up treading on glass or getting something unsanitary stuck between my toes, and probably end up having my chest and back sliced open by plants, or even break out in rashes from brushing past certain other plants.

All in all, I wasn't likely to try it.

I got back to the centre fairly quickly and left both Loki and Lacey with the nurse. I knew the latter hadn't been injured much, but didn't want to take my chances that she'd managed to pull something or injure herself in a way I hadn't realised. Thankfully the nurse told me that Loki wasn't going to need any advanced treatment, just to stay there for a few hours, and then a few days of rest.

It meant I had some time alone with Xander. I let him out in the pokémon centre's main lobby, and marvelled at how much he was changing. Almost all his skin was now a dull green, as opposed to the dark blue when I first captured him. His middle legs were almost non-existent, and his front ones were a good few inches longer than his hind legs. The yellow bill that surrounded his mouth was beginning to turn red, and was a dull orange at the moment. He still couldn't stand on his hind legs, but I figured he was probably nearing a metre tall in height.

I guessed it would be about a month before he changed into a lombre.

He looked up to me expectantly and I explained everything that happened in the gym to him. He listened the whole while, and only made a few noises when he heard that Loki had been injured, or that Lacey managed to kill Brawly's machop.

Other than that, he didn't seem too bothered by any of it. I went for a walk around town with him, slowing my pace to meet his as we wandered around. I figured that I would head to Granite Cave when Loki was fully treated from the centre, and would spend a couple of days there. Xander croaked an agreement, and I sensed he wanted to explore and enjoy the town as much as he could. We went to a few shops and bought enough things for the next few days, and earned a few shocked looks when Xander tried to reach something on a shelf and instead brought the whole display down on him. I just laughed and hurried him out of the store before collapsing on the roads nearby, doubled up and not caring about the looks I got.

Along the way I bought a new bandolier to hold my poké balls – this one had an emergency release button I placed on my waist, and when pressed it would release all my pokémon at once. I considered it a brilliant idea, and it meant that if I ever needed to use it, I only needed to press one button, as opposed to continually grabbing and throwing poké balls wildly.

As strange as it was, I felt normal for the little while I walked round town with Xander. I had no thoughts of gym battles, no thoughts of how to save the world, nothing about disobedient pokémon or the like. It was just me and Xander, enjoying being tourists rather than trainers.

For that brief while, I was normal. And it felt fun.

* * *

It was nearing mid-afternoon by the time Loki was ready to be checked out of the pokémon centre. I had left collecting Lacey until he was ready too, deciding to spend the few hours between with Xander. I had realised that even though I had started off with him, he wasn't the pokémon I felt most attached to. I had to admit, if only to myself, that Loki was fast becoming my favourite. He managed to provide me with laughter, and wasn't worried about working with bad morals.

It wasn't that I didn't like Xander – I cared for him a lot, which surprised me – it was just that his own set of morals often conflicted against my, admittedly lower set.

Even if he wasn't my favourite, I still enjoyed my time with him, regardless.

With all my pokémon on me, and in the new bandolier I had bought, I made way to Granite Cave. It was a good hour's walk away from the main town, and nestled on the northern part of the island, and stretched as far under it to the south-western side. It meant I could quite easily get lost within the network of tunnels and not emerge for a good few weeks, and even then I'd be on the other end of the island.

It didn't bother me in the slightest. My plan was to get away for a few days, it just meant if I was away for a week, I could use the time to train my pokémon further.

I stopped before the mouth of the cave and thought about that. I'd have to be running drills in the middle of a cave, with no light to see what my pokémon were doing. I supposed I would just have to deal with it.

The cave entrance itself was in a large mountain wall, and the sea water occasionally lapped up the beach high enough to trickle into the cave mouth. I stared at it running inside and wondered just whether the inside would be flooded or not.

It didn't matter if it was. If there was a large part of it that was flooded, I would simply avoid it. I pried my torch out of my bag and switched it on, flooding the darkness with a brilliant light. I couldn't help but smile, remembering Adryan's earlier, apt description of it being a miniature sun.

I bathed a far wall in light and saw something that looked like a paras scuttle away. I wondered briefly what sort of pokémon I would find in the depths of the cave, and whether or not I would know anything about them. The most obvious ones were the likes of zubat and geodude, which were found in almost every cave there was in the world. But I knew that sableye were native to this cave, and had never heard of the creature before I captured Loki. It meant there could be a few others I didn't know, like the aron Mia had mentioned she was hoping to capture.

I figured I would find out soon enough as I walked into the caves. I had my pokédex on me, and I could still use it in the dark, as it had its own light built in. I knew I could have checked it before I ventured in, but I wanted some element of surprise and mystery in the caves. Having prior information all the time was a good thing, but sometimes it did make things boring. I wanted something fun and exciting for once – though possibly not on the same level as in Petalburg Woods.

I called out Loki and watched as he sniffed the air in delight. He leapt up, danced around me and cackled in delight, and I figured that the cave smelt like home to him. I saw a few small cuts on his body that were a shade lighter than his skin, and figured that they would become scars in no time.

"Stay near me," I instructed him, following him with the beam of my torch. "If you wander off and get lost, I'm not going to be able to find you if you're hurt."

He nodded and made a few quick growls, though quickly began stalking around the cave, his arms raised above his head like a predator. I chuckled and pictured him perfectly in a vampire film as the main antagonist, sneaking around in the dimmest locations.

I walked at a slow pace in the cave, my eyes half-adjusted to light and dark both. Every so often I would hear Loki cackle in delight as a pokémon shrieked in alarm, and would often find him scaring the local wildlife. Though one time he did prod a paras in the back, and it responded by unleashing a cloud of spores on him then and there. As the creature scuttled away, he fell asleep on the spot, and fell forwards into the cave wall.

I laughed and returned him into his poké ball, figuring it would teach him a lesson. Sure enough, when I called him back out after what felt like half an hour, he was awake and a lot less tormenting towards the local creatures.

There wasn't really much to find in the cave itself, save for a large amount of rocks and large natural ledges, and some pitfalls I only found by Loki happily pushing rocks or pokémon into. I would have chastised him, but it happened to save me, so I just let him have his fun.

After about an hour of walking in a straight line, the floor began to dip into a small slope. It angled around to the left and opened up into a large cavern that was filled with a great number of rocky crevices and alcoves, all blending in brilliantly in the darkness.

I could hear a number of pokémon in the tunnels, and occasionally my flashlight would find something like a geodude, a zubat, or even a nosepass carrying on without fuss towards my presence. A few times random feral pokémon would attack, but Loki managed to take them out with only a moment's notice. I realised his eyesight was naturally adapted to these conditions, and he could spot the threats a long time before I could.

It also made me swim with confidence that he was actually stopping things from attacking me.

We made it further into the cave, and I followed Loki as he sniffed out something I couldn't see. He ended up leading me further underground, and I flipped open my phone to find it had no signal whatsoever. We were pretty far down within the cave networks, and my only guard and guide was a trickster.

And yet, I felt completely safe with him around.

He ended up leading me into a small chamber that I would never have been able to find myself. The walls were glistening with jewels, and my eyes shone with the light they reflected. It was a beautiful mesh of every colour imaginable, and I wished I had a good enough camera to take a picture of it. A photo of it alone would have been worth thousands.

"Don't," I growled at Loki as he tried to gnaw at the gems on the wall. "They could be supporting the wall, or they could even belong to the sableye in this cave." His ears perked up at the mention of his species, and I smiled at him. "Yup, sableye live in here. I actually let you out to see if we find any, and to see if you can learn something from them."

He looked at me, tilted his head and then rubbed his hands together with a gleeful laugh. I was still trying to adjust to the fact that such movements weren't signalling him plotting my doom, even if they did look like they suited a poorly acted villain on some action film.

I shook my head at him and turned back to the gems on the wall. They were all different shapes and sizes, and I couldn't help but notice that some shone brighter than others. I squinted at an orange one and held my torch up enough to let me see it better. It was a brilliant colour, and I saw that within it seemed a flame was burning. I stared at it a moment and realised it was almost exactly the same as the one I'd taken from the store in Rustboro, the same one I'd fed to Loki as a job well done.

The media were saying that among everything that was stolen, a 'fire stone' was one of the items missing. I had the briefest memory of Adryan mentioning such stones to me, and that they had enough radiation in them to cause certain pokémon to evolve.

I had fed Loki one of those stones.

My stomach flipped at the thought. I'd let him eat something that emitted _radiation!_ Who knew what it would lead to! I could end up with him warping into some horrible creature that couldn't control it's flames, or anything!

My mind went haywire, and only shut down as I heard Loki chattering behind me. Another set of growls, deeper than his own answered him, and I whipped round in an instant. Loki was stood in a corner of the room, looking up curiously at something.

I panned the light upwards and illuminated a larger, darker sableye in the light. It looked up and hissed at me, clutching some form of gem in its hands. I heard Loki chatter beneath it, and it hissed at me once more before it began to consume to gem once more, and large amounts of drool dropped from its mouth.

I stared at the gem it was eating. It was a brilliant blue, and it looked like it was made of water. It had to be a water stone. If the wild sableye was eating it, that _had_ to mean it wasn't all bad that I let Loki eat a fire stone.

The wild sableye hissed at once both once more before it faded into the shadows, and whilst I whipped around trying to see where it went, anticipating a threat, Loki just stood there, watching in one lone spot. I stared at him, then at the spot, and found nothing, even when I shone my flashlight directly at it. I figured that either the wild sableye was hiding there, or it had said something to Loki before it vanished.

It took a moment, but then the trickster looked up to me and offered a wide, fanged grin, and begun pointing at the gems on the walls. He grunted and growled all the while, and I found myself taking a few minutes to understand him.

"They wanted you to take some?" I guessed, and couldn't help but smile when Loki jumped up and down in excitement. He cackled and pried a green stone from the wall, though I quickly thought about it and forced it back in. "Don't take the leaf stones," I told him, keeping my voice stern. "If we have them on us, they could end up doing things to Lacey." I threw him a grin. "And personally, I think she's dangerous enough as is. I don't wanna piss her off anymore, do you?"

He looked at me, tilted his head then laughed and scampered away. I gathered that he opted not to piss off the murderous nuzleaf either. Instead he pried a fire stone from the wall, and made quick work of consuming it, again repeating the exact same reactions as when he ate one in Rustboro.

I wondered why he would be able to eat one without any ill effects. More so, I wondered what eating such stones could do for him. After finishing that one, he grabbed two more – another fire stone and a thunder stone, and gestured for me to put them in my bag. I wasn't completely sure whether or not it was a good idea, but gathered that since he'd talked to the sableye with a water stone, it must have been okay.

I placed them both in my bag, my mind blazing all the while with the reasoning why sableye could eat rocks and gems in addition to normal foods. It seemed strange – I knew there was almost no energy content in them – but there had to have been a reason for it. I shrugged and decided that if he had a few more and something happened, my question would be answered. If nothing, then it would most likely be a tasty food source for them.

At the thought of food my stomach growled. The sound made Loki laugh before he pressed his head forwards and tried to imitate it. I laughed and scratched him behind the ears, telling him we needed to find somewhere safe to set up and eat. I could have chosen to sit down there, but opted to move further away, just in case the radiation from the leaf stones affected Lacey, or even just in case the water stones affected Xander.

It took a good twenty minutes of walking, but eventually we found a small cave within the rock face of a wall. It was large enough to fit about four people sitting down, all around a fire, and so I knew myself and all my pokémon would fit in. I released both Lacey and Xander, instructing them to keep an eye out whilst I lit a fire. Lacey disagreed at first, and threatened to walk off into the dark, until I told her that I was about to give out food, and that there was nowhere to forage in the cave.

It seemed to swing her vote. She stood just outside of the cave entrance, choosing to remain a distance away, as if our very presence offended her. I managed to get the fire lit, and Xander croaked quite happily with the warmth of it, whilst Loki kept trying to put his fingers in it like an excited child.

I looked at them both and grinned. "Good thing I still had some wood from Petalburg," I said aloud, knowing they probably couldn't understand me. I was beginning to realise why people travelled in groups; sometimes the lack of human interaction did tend to make you lonely.

I forced the feelings down. I had a job to do; I had to stop the world becoming that of which I grew up in. It was my task alone, and I couldn't burden anyone with it.

I began playing with the lighter I had bought earlier, watching my pokémon cradle the fire – or in Lacey's case, pretend it and we didn't exist. The dull orange tones lit up a good portion of the caves, and I found myself able to see a good few metres all around me. I could see small gatherings of little pink pokémon with large ears jumping around in the far distance, and every so often a zubat would flutter by. I frowned and turned back to the fire, knowing that it would attract pokémon. A cold shiver raced down my spine, and I shuddered loud and completely.

All of my pokémon looked to me in concern. I smiled and shook their concerns away with my hand. It was the horrible feeling again, like the one I had when I was in the pokémon centre.

I was being paranoid.

I had to be.

Regardless I turned to Lacey. "Can you see anything in this darkness?" She looked at me, and I saw the light catch her eyes. It took me a moment to realise that the light hadn't actually caught her eyes, more that it was coming _from_ them. She was a creature of darkness; she could see in the dark perfectly.

Which didn't help my paranoia that she would kill us in our sleep.

"You can then," I said, nodding to myself as fear built up slowly in my body. Something was making that cold feeling race up me, it had to be! I was being watched, it was the only explanation for it!

Watched, or followed.

The news report said that one of Aaron's pokémon wasn't found on him. The creepy feeling had been haunting me since I got into Dewford. There had to be a connection somewhere!

"Can you see any bugs here?" I asked Lacey, and drew from her another sneer. She shook her head and pointed to the distance, and with the help of my torch I found a small family of paras scuttling along a uneven, rocky wall. "Not those sort of bugs," I said. "But thanks," I added, seeing her dark look. "I meant something that looks... _weird_." Really detailed description, considering I was describing a bug pokémon. They all looked weird.

"Is it possible for bugs to be dark or ghostly?" I asked her, and my other pokémon too. "Or even psychic?"

Lacey looked at me a moment and shrugged. Xander and Loki both shared expressions of equal confusion. Well, that was a dead end. Instead I sighed, shook my head and thanked Lacey once more before retreating into the small cavern.

Fire would attract pokémon, I recalled. So would any scents of food. I pulled a face and set to work. "Lacey, you and Xander eat first," I said, even as I was working through my bag, trying to find something for them to eat. "Me and Loki will make sure nothing comes chasing after us for it. Then we swap around. Is that alright?"

Xander croaked an affirmation. Lacey just hissed at me. Even Loki had the courtesy to jump up and down happily, nodding all the while.

It only took a few moments for me to pour the strange kibble for the two grass pokémon. Lacey didn't look happy about being given her food in a metal dish normally used for growlithe and the like to eat off the floor with – though she rarely did look happy when I was around. She clutched it in her hands, making a slow, deliberate attempt to sniff it, ensuring it wasn't tainted.

"I can taste test if you want me to," I told her, grinning slightly. She hadn't forgotten what had happened on the boat. Not that I could blame her – I think anyone would remember being spiked and getting diarrhoea. "There's been no competition since the boat, and I don't want to start it again, to be honest with you."

She pulled her lip back in a sneer again, though took a tiny bite from her food. Deciding it was adequate, she placed the whole thing in her mouth and chewed slowly, offering me only a minute nod in response.

Once they were done with their food, I cleaned away everything and gave Loki a bowl of his own. He grumbled and grasped for my bag, though I made it clear the stones were treats only. I wondered just whether or not I would still have such a problem if I ever decided to speed up Xander's evolution into a ludicolo.

With Lacey and Xander watching for pokémon, I rested back against the cave wall and pried out my pokédex, snacking on an energy bar as I flicked through its database. In the whole machine, there was only one pokémon that matched anything to do with my fears; a strange, ghostly bug known as shedinja. Apparently it was nothing more than the shed shell of a nincada, brought to life by some unholy spirit inhabiting it. Supposedly it didn't breathe, eat or sleep, nor did it make any sound or movement even as it floated along, stalking its enemies throughout the world.

I shuddered again. It was the perfect predator. At least, it would have been, did it eat anything. Instead it seemed to be nothing more than a ghostly grudge, seeking down and killing things for whatever reason.

Goosebumps tickled my entire body. I prayed it wasn't one of them that was following me, and only my own imagination.

I tried to convince myself it was something else. Maybe it was that damned scizor – I never saw what happened to it after I ran away from it. Maybe it was even the creepy-looking beautifly. Or maybe I was just going crazy, seeing shadows where there weren't any.

Xander croaked low in warning, and I nearly leapt out of my skin. I threw the pokédex into my pocket as quickly as I could and scrambled out of the small cave, the small fire providing me just enough light to see what my pokémon was growling at.

It was a yellow pokémon about a metre tall, and was almost completely muscle. Its hands were a dark black, as was the colouring around its collar. There was a red ring on both of its cheeks, and it squinted at us with almost-closed eyes. A quick glance down told me it was obviously male.

I identified it at once. Makuhita, a fighter that was nearly all muscle, though had enough fat reserves to make it not feel the cold or the heat. They were deadly fighters at close range, and had a habit for attacking foes larger than itself and never giving up until they were knocked out or killed.

I grinned to myself. I could use a tough pokémon like that.

It growled at us, grunting and pointing towards the fire and Loki's food. I knew the food would attract a pokémon, though never considered catching whatever it attracted until I saw the pokémon stood before me.

"Xander, you take care of this," I whispered, shooting serious glances at Lacey and Loki both. "I want to catch this, so don't injure it too badly, alright?"

He croaked his agreement, and I smiled. "Make sure to keep your distance," I warned. "Now slow it down with some bubbles!"

That was a sentence I never thought I'd say in my entire life.

Xander took a deep breath a spat out a steady stream of bubbles, like he was one of those strange machines. They shone and floated towards the makuhita, and it seemed to scoff at the non-threatening looking attack. Its bravado was quickly shaken as each of them popped in its eyes and mouth, and swam around it enough to make it flail in pain, movements slowed by the barrage of bubbles swarming around it. They all popped at once, making the pokémon hiss in pain and flail backwards, soaked to the core.

It roared in anger and raced forwards, its arms already up for an assault. Xander leapt forwards and smashed his skull into the pokémon's stomach before it could even swing at him, and then blasted it point-blank with an explosion of water.

He waddled up to the pokémon, croaked and nudged it. The makuhita groaned and tried to force itself back up to its feet, fierce tenacity forcing it to fight again.

I smiled. My pokémon were getting strong. Added to that, the little makuhita's fighting spirit made my hopes soar for getting somewhere fast. I grabbed my bag and pried out a poké ball, and saw Xander step aside another attack and blow a few bubbles at the fighter, knocking it down once more. It wasn't giving up, that much was certain.

I aimed the ball and lobbed it with all the force I could muster. It bounced off the pokémon's fatty stomach and exploded open in the air, shaking a few times before it finally dimmed. I'd caught it.

"Alright!" I cheered, excitement bubbling through me. I could understand why people stayed trainers so long; there was always a rush in something, no matter what you were doing.

Xander nudged the poké ball back to me, and Loki began doing some strange little celebratory dance. Meanwhile Lacey just stood there, eyeing us all with distaste. I rolled my eyes at her and placed the makuhita's ball on my bandolier.

"Don't be so upset," I told her with a smile. "I could have had Loki pound you into submission like that. You're lucky he only poked you in the eyes and didn't just claw them out."

She hissed, and her leaves became sharp as razors as she swiped them up. I had barely even blinked before it rested against my neck, pressing hard enough to draw a little line of blood. Her meaning was clear; she could kill us at anytime, without any effort.

The fact that she wasn't said something, at least.

Regardless, I didn't take the threat kindly. As soon as she let down her guard to look smug, I snatched her arm by the wrist and twisted it. She cried out in alarm and went to hit me with her other hand, and I caught that too by the wrist and twisted them in opposite directions. Her face was almost in mine, and either of us could have smashed our skull into the other to break free. But neither of us did.

"Listen to me Lacey," I growled acidly, dimly aware the other two pokémon were watching and ready to attack. "I will _not_ have you pulling any shit like that. I know you can kill me, and yes, I appreciate the fact that you haven't but-" I twisted one of her arms in my grasp, and she cried out as I wrapped it around her neck and pulled her back against me, so that her back was pressed to me, one arm restrained behind her, another pressed against her own throat. "Know that I don't need any sort of technology to kill _you_. Pull any stunts like that again, and I won't hesitate to snap your neck and leave you there dying like you did to that machop."

I growled once more, released and pushed her away in the same movement. She gave me a dark look and then turned away, sulking and discretely rubbing her injured arms.

Xander croaked at me, drawing my attention down to him. "It's nothing," I reassured him, waving away his question. I wiped away the blood trickling down my neck and shuddered once more, again feeling the unholy presence of something watching me. It was happening more often – it had to mean it was coming closer, whatever it was.

I pushed away my paranoia. "Alright guys, time for drills. You're not getting off just because we're in a cave. I know perfectly well two of you can see just fine in here." I turned to Xander, crouched down and smiled at him. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you, but watch your footing if you're moving about. I'd rather you try practicing longer range attacks, but be careful not to aim them too far. There's going to be a lot worse than beedrill in here to piss off."

I nodded at him, and he gave a little warble back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lacey flex her wrists and push off the wall she was leaning against. She walked a little out of my sight, and I caught the faintest flashes of light as her eyes wiped around in the darkness. Both my pokémon looked up at me, and I just shook my head. "It's alright guys," I reassured them. "She's just blowing off some steam."

I watched both the others agree and walk off to train somewhere nearby, still in my direct sight. I had two badges, and yet she still hated me. Most people tried to convince you to challenge gym leaders because owning badges would help you control them.

That was total bull.

Badges were nothing more than a statement between humans. Pokémon didn't care if you beat a gym leader or not, because it was _them_ that battled. If anything, it was like exploiting them for your own advancement.

To earn their respect and obedience, you actually needed to do something else. Each pokémon had its own personality, and would take different amounts of time and effort to earn their trust, at the very least.

I found it amazing that I knew all of that already. I made a quick flick through my pokédex to check through the pokémon native to the cave. While before I was looking forward to the excitement of not knowing what lay in wait, I didn't want to live in the dark anymore. I needed to know just what lay in the caves, just in case there was something stalking me, and it was native to the caves.

I couldn't find anything that fit the bill save for abra and sableye. The first couldn't do much more than teleport unless they were intelligent enough to train with other pokémon to learn new abilities. I figured the latter wouldn't bother me, as I had one with me, and the other sableye I met before never attacked me.

It didn't really put my mind at ease.

Either way, I found out there were no machop that lived in the network of caves. It made me feel just the slightest bit relieved – I didn't exactly have much luck with the creatures. Out of two I'd encountered, Loki had mauled one – I still didn't know whether it was alive or not – and Lacey had killed one.

I figured that maybe I should stay clear of any trainers with a machop. With my luck with them, Xander would break their ribs with a blast of water, or the new makuhita would pound it into a bloody wreck.

Though my luck with machop turned out to be the least of my worries in the caves and Dewford both.


	20. Prey

**Author's Note:** Hello everyone. Well, the story's increased to an 'M' rating now. There is good reason for this, as you shall see. Be warned: there's a lot of violence and gore within this chapter, among other things. Anyway, once again, thanks for reading, and sticking with the story.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

**_Regret_  
**

**Prey**

**

* * *

**_Fools rush in where angels fear to tread _~ Alexander Pope

**-O-O-O-**

_"There are many things in this world we can never hope to even begin to understand. Why we became capable of looking to the stars and dreaming up constructions, whilst other creatures were content with where they were. Why some ghosts continue to exist on our plane, holding on and tormenting those of us that still live. Most importantly; why some creatures seem capable of vile acts, whilst others are not. Humans are not the only creatures to kill for fun, as many pok__émon do so too._

_I saw a lot when I was a travelling trainer, as do most people. I saw the horrors the world is capable of, and decided that I would do my best to try and stop such things from happening._

_But sometimes, I can't help but wonder:_

_Should we have ever been trusted with the gift of dreaming, when all it leads to are nightmares?"_

- Phoebe Narx, 49th Hoenn League Champion, Hoenn Elite Four Member 3005-3025. _(April 16th, 3004)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

I figured we had been in the caves for at least three days by the time we came across another cluster of elemental stones. Instantly I recalled Xander and Lacey to their balls, and left only Loki by my side. He cackled with delight and raced around the gems, their light reflecting in his greedy little eyes.

I felt a cold chill pass down me and resisted the urge to yelp.

They were becoming more frequent. I'd felt two the day I ventured into the caves; three the next, six the day after. And that was at least the tenth one that day. I couldn't kid myself anymore.

I was being followed.

I released the makuhita out of its ball and watched as it tensed itself, walking around with arrogant pride. He had healed well since Xander had battled him, and didn't seem to object to being a trainer pokémon once he'd seen Xander and Loki ready to attack again, and more importantly, the food I offered him. Lacey wasn't much of a help, but the moment he saw her, he shuddered visibly and cowered away.

It made me wonder whether pokémon could sense killers or not. Every pokémon that had met Lacey so far had reacted with palpable fear, no matter the situation. It was like she gave off an aura only they could see, and I guessed it had to be with her... _hobby_ before I captured her.

Regardless, it worked in my favour.

The makuhita turned out to be a lot easier than Lacey to train, but still a fair sight harder than Loki or Xander. I was still struggling to get him to understand basic commands, and hadn't managed to break him out of his habit of attacking any opponent without a moment's thought. As soon as something tried to attack us, he would rush in and try to beat seven shades out of it. He was the complete opposite to Xander in that regard, though it was still a bad thing.

He growled as he walked around, holding himself up and flattening his shoulders. I realised he could see pretty well in the dark, and once or twice he would punch away a geodude everyone else thought was nothing but a rock. He also seemed to want to prove himself again to Xander, and would challenge the lotad every time we stopped to rest. More often than not, he was completely outclassed, though he did occasionally manage to get a few good hits in.

He also didn't seem to understand he wasn't able to physically hit Loki. He would constantly try and challenge the ghost, but every time Loki would let the attacks pass through him harmlessly. I knew any sort of fighting-based attacks didn't affect Loki regardless of whether he was in the shadows or not, and never really bothered trying to stop the makuhita. Loki thought it was all a game, and it was making him more reflexive in turning intangible.

I noticed though, the makuhita never attacked him from behind. He would always announce his intentions before attempting to pulverise him. I recalled that fighters wouldn't hesitate to pummel their opponent into a spot on the floor, though would never perform a sneak attack. I wondered just whether or not I could influence him to think otherwise.

I began wondering whether I should teach it the strange attack Brawly had all his fighters use on Loki. I had found it in the pokédex, and it detailed how it would allow pokémon to identify any sort of ghost, and would allow them to hit it with attacks that would otherwise pass through them.

But of course, I had no idea how to teach him it.

He growled again, and I noticed him pick up another geodude and fling it somewhere into the caves. Whilst I shook my head and worried about it coming back with a graveller or the like, Loki found it incredibly amusing, and tried it himself, though with much less success.

Once we cleared the strange area with gems, I released Xander and Lacey again. Once again the makuhita shied away from her, and I wondered just what was making it happen. If pokémon could sense her past crimes, I began to wonder if they could share such fear with their trainers.

Which meant, if someone adapted enough felt what their pokémon could, it might mean a few people would learn about Lacey's past crimes. I didn't have much of a problem with them, providing she didn't do it anymore, though knew other people might not see it the same way.

They could even find out that she helped me kill the Elite.

I pushed the thought away. I couldn't dwell on it. I focused on more present thoughts, like what to name the makuhita. He'd gone three days without one, and it was three days of constantly having to speak to him directly. I also wondered whether or not I should give him a sash or something to cover up. I knew people would give hitmonchan the strange purple dress-thing when they competed competitively, if only for reasons of decency. Though I'd never seen anyone else cover up any other pokémon – the machops I'd fought were both uncovered, as were all of Brawly's pokémon, for that matter.

If they didn't have to cover up their pokémon, I wouldn't either, I decided. Even if it was a bit weird to see my pokémon's genitals swinging around underneath it.

I glanced around the cave, swinging my light in every direction. I couldn't see anything new, and wondered whether or not we were reaching the end of it. After three days trekking through it, I figured we had to be nearing an exit somewhere. As much as I didn't like the heat, feeling the sun on my skin would be a nice change. It would mean I also wouldn't be going to the toilet in the dark anymore, which was always nice.

"Hey guys, you know if there's an exit around here?" I asked my pokémon. I was aware that I now had three pokémon that could see in the dark, one of whom that was native to these caves. I received a few negative grunts, followed by a shared excited murmur from Loki and the makuhita both. They'd found an exit.

My excitement was cut short as I felt another shudder. This time I couldn't help but yelp, and my body felt so incredibly cold for a moment. It was like I'd been dumped in an ice bath and then left in a freezer for a good week, and I collapsed to the floor, panting and shivering heavily.

If there was any doubt in my mind before, that killed it. Something was hunting me.

I picked myself up, aware of two of my pokémon trying to help me. The makuhita just looked confused, and Lacey just didn't care. I shook off Loki and Xander's concerns as well as I could, and instructed them with a shaky breath to lead us towards an exit.

If I was being followed, I would rather confront whatever it was in the light.

My mind was racing with panic as I followed my pokémon. Every shadow seemed to loom at me, every noise was a death threat to all of us.

It was borderline psychological torture.

What was that noise? Did it get a bit colder? A bit darker? Do I feel breath on my neck?

I was turning into a nervous wreck.

When Loki hissed, I stopped dead in my tracks.

My heart was pumping frost through my veins. I'd only ever heard him use that tone on the wurmple and Lacey. He'd found something!

I tried my best to keep my hands steady as I lifted the torch towards Loki, and then followed his gaze.

I found...

A brown pokémon, floating there unnaturally. It looked like nothing more than a dead shell, and I could see pieces of whatever made it up flaking off. It was dead, peeling and alive, all at once. There was a strange white circle above it; some twisted form of a halo, guiding its unnatural movements.

... I found a shedinja.

I screamed and dropped the torch as I fell backwards. It clattered noisily on the ground and bathed me in darkness. I couldn't see anything! I could only hear my heart thundering in my chest, threatening to burst free at any moment. My hands shook and scrambled over the floor, searching in vain for my source of light.

I heard footsteps pound the floor. The makuhita was attacking. I tried to scream at it to stop, knowing it couldn't hit it, but I couldn't find my voice.

There was silence.

And then _horrible_ screaming.

I think I started screaming too as I scrambled for the torch. I finally found it and gripped it like it was salvation itself, lifting it up and basking the cave in erratic, shaking light. I needed to know what was happening. I turned the torch to where the shedinja was...

... and found nothing.

My breath caught a moment. Then the makuhita's headless corpse dropped in front of me. I screamed and jumped backwards along the floor as it fell backwards, spraying fluids everywhere.

"Holy fuck!" I screamed, scrambling in vain to find my feet. I felt cold fear flood me again and jumped backwards, only just avoiding the dead bug's lethal drop. I stared at it and wondered how exactly it managed to kill the makuhita. Then I saw the darkness coming out from inside its shell. I realised how incredibly dangerous the darkness was then. Whatever lived in the shed shell attacked from within darkness. In the dark, it could sneak out and rip its foes to little pieces.

It took every bit of will I had not to piss myself then and there.

I screamed again and jumped to my feet, worried for the rest of my pokémon. I heard Xander croak and Loki hiss nearby, and felt immense relief flood me at their continued existence. Yellow lights shone nearby me, and I knew Lacey too, was still alive.

I pointed my torch at her. "Get it!" I yelled. "You've got to know some dark attacks, get it!"

She turned to me and gave me a mutinous look. I understood then what it was about. She couldn't kill me, for fear that the poké ball would kill her too. But I had never said she would die if something else killed me first.

"Fuck!" I hissed, leaping back another step. I couldn't see the dead stalker. I couldn't hear it. I couldn't even _smell_ it! I saw Loki and Xander out of the corner of my eye, and screamed at Loki to get the creature. I'd researched the pokémon in my paranoia, and found it could only be injured by specific attacks. Everything else simply washed off it with no effect. It meant Xander was completely useless against it.

I heard Loki hiss and screech, and a flurry of movement I assumed to be him attacking. My breath caught, and after hearing no screams, I released it. He was still alive. It gave me hope, and made me figure out a plan.

I needed something to injure it. Between all of my pokémon, I was certain they didn't know anything to put it down for good. Loki had no moves from his nature, aside from darting into the shadows, and Lacey wasn't helping.

I needed fire!

I cursed. Where the hell could I get it? I only had a lighter on me, and nothing I could use as a torch. I kept moving as I rummaged in my bag, searching in vain for something I could use. Clothes, no. Books, no. Food. Water. Soap. Deodorant. Toothbrush.

Wait.

My breath caught.

Deodorant!

I snatched it out of my bag as quickly as I could and handed Xander the torch. He fumbled around with it, and I told him to try and find the shedinja as quickly as he could.

I jumped away from him and flicked at the lighter, trying to get it to work. "C'mon!" I hissed, flicking it again and again. Once. Twice. Three times.

Fire bloomed out of it.

And illuminated the shedinja in my face.

I screamed and fell backwards even as it shied away from the flames. My whole body shook as I grabbed the deodorant can and sprayed it into the flames, making a makeshift flamethrower.

The ghost hissed and backed away. I saw Xander chase after it with the torch, and Loki pull himself off the floor and chase after it. Lacey remained indifferent in the distance, and I saw the smug smile on her face when the light passed over her.

I put the thought away and searched for the ghost.

Where was it?

I sprayed more flames everywhere, coating the air around me in an orange glow. I couldn't see it! I couldn't see anything. I caught the barest flash of brown as Xander panned the torch.

There!

I leapt forwards and sprayed flames again. The shedinja stopped in its tracks, and I heard a haunting wail scream around the caves as it burst into flame. Its whole body caught fire, and I continued to spray it with flames until the spray of my deodorant ran out. Xander dropped the torch, and the only light between us was the shedinja flailing in the air, still aflame. It dropped suddenly, still burning on the floor, and I backed away, still fearful.

It wasn't dead. I couldn't believe that for a moment. It was a ghost. It couldn't die.

I recalled Lacey and Xander both, and shouted at Loki to find the exit. He nodded and raced along, near enough dragging me as we ran away.

We fled from the new demon stalking us, and the dead little fighter that was once part of our team.

* * *

It took barely a few minutes to reach the outside of the caves, but to me, it felt a lifetime. Sunlight basked down upon us, and I felt immeasurable relief upon feeling the sun on my skin. I didn't care how dirty I was, how much blood and who knew what else I was covered in.

I was alive.

I began panting, breathing hard and laughing all at the same time. Loki looked at me as if I'd gone mad.

In a way, I suppose I had.

I thanked him and recalled him back into his poké ball, giving him a little bit of rest. I'd have to talk to Lacey later on, and try to establish some sort of deal with her. She'd been quite happy to let me die in there. If I had, no doubt Xander and Loki would have turned on her. She'd slaughter Xander without any problem, though I knew she couldn't kill Loki. She'd end up injuring him, and then he would either turn bitter and twisted and hunt her down, or live wildly in the caves, attacking travellers that came too near.

I didn't want any scenario happening.

I caught my breath and drew my gun, not taking any chances anymore. The whole island was cursed, I felt, and didn't want to be on it a moment longer. The caves had let me out into the middle of a forest, and I had no idea of where I was, let alone how I was to get back to the main island and escape on a boat.

I settled into familiarity and evaluated my immediate surroundings. There was a hoothoot nest in a nearby tree, and there were enough broken branches and squashed berries around me to tell me it was something's nest.

I stepped forwards slowly, testing the ground. I was letting fear guide me, and it was the only thing keeping my hold on sanity at that time. I took a small step and recoiled before I stepped down on the small cluster of seeds on the ground.

"Oh... shit," I cursed, identifying them at once. Leech seeds. It meant a grass pokémon had set up its nest nearby, and was out hunting for food.

I considered what it meant for a moment. I had walked into a nest belonging to a sceptile, tropius, carnivine or a roserade. Everything else that used such a tactic wasn't native to Hoenn, so were effectively ruled out. I couldn't see any banana plants nearby, and the weather wasn't humid enough for tropius to thrive. That ruled them out. There weren't many bunches of flowers nearby, which meant roserade wouldn't be able to use them for camouflage.

It meant I was in the middle of a sceptile or a carnivine's nest. Neither was good, and both could kill me quite easily.

My head snapped up at the sound of buzzing nearby. Small flies flew around something in the near distance, buzzing loudly and swarming in greater numbers by the minute. They were feasting on something dead.

It was risky, but I knew if I saw what the prey was, I could tell what pokémon's nest I had walked into.

Carefully I inched forwards, walking on tiptoes. The ground underneath me was wet and soft, which meant I had to tread even lighter, for fear of squelching down on the mud and alerting something to my presence.

It took a few minutes, but I finally made it to where the flies were feasting on dead flesh. When I saw it, I couldn't believe my eyes.

Two sceptile, dead and flayed completely of their skin. I couldn't see any trace of it on them, and all their organs were splashed around them, staining the ground and making the entire area stink. I gagged and pressed an arm to my mouth, trying to ward off the stench. It made me certain I'd walked into a sceptile's nest. They were top of the food chain in the forest.

It meant something else had killed them. Something had killed them and skinned them.

Realisation hit me full force.

"Oh fuck," I breathed, knowing instantly. Gardevoir! Some demons had set up nest here, and were going around killing everything. I heard a twig snap and whirled round instantly. The air exploded out of my lungs as something unseen picked me up and hurled me into a tree. Something snapped, and I hoped it was only the tree before I was slung into it again. I grunted a pained scream, blood trickling from my mouth before everything started to blur and fade.

I was out with the next blow.

* * *

My head was pounding as I came to sometime later. My throat felt incredibly dry, and my entire back ached with fresh and old bruises. My mind worked slowly, trying to piece together what had happened. I'd escaped the cave... then stumbled into a pokémon nest... I'd found two dead sceptile... and then something threw me into a tree.

I gasped and shot up full force. Gardevoir! I'd been captured by one of the demons! I had to have been!

I only just became aware that my arms and legs all felt dead. I struggled to move them and found that they weren't budging an inch. In fact, my entire body refused to move. I glanced around and felt my stomach drop as I saw the soft blue glow encasing my body.

Something was holding my body against a tree trunk.

It meant they were nearby! I glanced around and saw my gun on the floor, well out of my reach. I couldn't move enough to grab either of my knives, let alone my poké balls. I couldn't even reach the damn emergency release button I'd bought!

I began to fret, dreaming up stories and brutal fantasies of how I was going to die.

Then my brain burned with pain.

_[Silly, curious human.]_

I screamed as it burned at my head with white-hot pain, and thrashed uncontrollably against my bonds. The voice burnt into my skull, rasping in horrible, demonic, barely female tones.

_[Did you never learn from that saying you have? Curiosity killed the delcatty... or something like that.]_ I felt it laugh within my brain, and couldn't stop the tears building in my eyes from the pain. _[You humans have such strange ways with words. But they do seem to make sense.]_

I saw movement from the corner of my blurry vision, and my stomach dropped once more as I identified it as a gardevoir. It near enough floated over the ground, and I saw its skirt only barely covered its knees. I knew then and there what was going to happen.

It was going to skin me alive. I was going to become a part of its demonic dress.

What was there already had the faintest tinge of green, and I knew it was the demon that killed the sceptile.

It stepped towards me and cupped my chin with its hell-born claws. I flinched and turned my face away, but it grabbed me again, holding me firm. It reached forwards and seemed to inhale before it stepped back, delight shining in its unnatural eyes.

_[You'll do fine.]_

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as it burned my brain again. I panted for a moment, trying in vain to collect some emotion that wasn't fear. "I'm... I'm going to kill you," I breathed.

It looked like it raised an eyebrow at me. _[Really? And how do you plan on doing that when you're held under my power?]_

I flailed again as pain skewered my brain, and the demon delighted in my agony. It kept probing and prodding, whispering words within my skull that I couldn't hear over the blistering pain.

I wanted to die then and there, just to make it stop.

It cupped my chin again and drew one long, creepy claw against my face. _[Don't worry. You're not going to die yet. You're going to get a show first.]_

I wondered just what it meant before it snapped its demonic hand, and a flash of light shone in the clearing. I squinted my eyes shut, and found that when I opened them, there was something else bound to a tree opposite me. It was a pokémon, and a good foot taller than me, as well as at least double my width in bulk and fat both.

It was a hariyama, and I had no idea where the demon had taken it from. But even the pokémon looked afraid of the demon in front of it, and screamed as it struggled against its bonds.

I saw the gardevoir float over to it, and instantly the fighter seemed to renew its efforts against the psychic hold. But nothing was working, and it thrashed in vain. I saw the demon stop before it and float up to meet its face. It cupped its chin, and moved the skin dress sideways a moment before it –

"Oh _gods_," I breathed.

It was _raping_ it! The hariyama looked just as afraid and shocked as me, if not more, and it seemed to melt into the embrace as the demon pushed the emotion spike into its chest. I saw a trickle of blood come from its chest, and knew what it meant.

The demons could transfer feelings by the spike on their chest. It was transferring whatever it felt into the pokémon in order to complete its act.

Bile built in my throat. I was going to be sick.

The hariyama seemed to melt into the embrace, and I struggled in vain to escape. I prayed with all my heart it didn't have the same plan for me. Dying by the demon's hand was one thing, but I did _not_ want to be violated by it before I died.

And the hariyama began to scream.

My head whipped up in time to see blood beginning to trickle down from its head. It was screaming more and more, even as the demon continued on it. Its skin began to peel away, and I could see the bleeding flesh underneath.

I snapped my head away, breathing quickly to try not to be sick. I could hear it screaming over everything, louder and louder. It was being skinned alive, and there was nothing I could do to stop it!

I could hear every scream, every rip of flesh.

My body shook with fear, real fear, far greater than any I had ever experienced before. I knew then that the island was indeed cursed, and began to truly believe I would never get off it.

The pokémon's screams became gurgles, and I turned back to see the state of it. The skin was peeling away from its neck, ever so slowly. I could see white fatty tissue being pulled apart as the skin fell away, and could see the hariyama trying to scream, though it no longer had any skin on its face or throat. Blood pumped from it, showering it and the demon both.

Its screams became gurgles, and then, nothing.

The demon removed itself from the pokémon and continued to skin it with psychic powers, going as slowly as before. I could see it falling away like a coat. It was peeling backwards, unfolding slowly and showing the gruesome horrors within.

I tried to look away, but something held my neck in place. The demon turned to me and _winked_.

_[Don't be afraid. You've got this to look forward to.]_

I was panicking again as the skin peeled away, ever so slowly. I could see everything inside the hariyama underneath the fat beneath its skin. Its heart was no longer beating, and its lungs no longer breathing. It was dead.

And the demon hadn't even offered it a quick death!

My breathing was erratic, and I was certain I was going to have a heart attack. All I could see, all I could hear... all I could _smell_ was the hariyama's skin being removed from its body.

Tears were trickling from my eyes, and I felt nothing but fear. I knew I needed to get away, but my body couldn't break the hold the creature had on me. Even with its attention rapt on its victim, I was still bound completely.

The demon couldn't be that strong. The fact that it was only just collecting skin for its dress said as much.

My heart seemed to stop a moment. It meant...

It meant there was another demon nearby!

_[Well aren't you a smart little human.]_

Another voice burned in my skull, though this time I felt the smallest trace of male tones. The female demon spared the tiniest of glances towards a nearby tree, where I saw another demon sitting on a branch. Unlike the other demon, this one had its skirt starting from its shoulders, wearing it as more of a cloak.

It leapt down lithely from the tree and never touched ground, instead floating an inch or two above it. Its eyes were shining the same blue as that around my body, and I felt myself die a little inside.

I would have barely managed to escape _one_. With two demons holding me hostage, I knew I had next to no chance to live.

It floated towards me, a smug smile on its face as it stopped and regarded me. I felt like nothing more than an art exhibit, and wanted to just have the situation end. Whether it was by escaping, killing them or my own death, I just wanted it all to stop.

The male demon seemed to read my thoughts, and I heard something emerge from its throat like a laugh. _[You aren't going anywhere little human. We caught you. You can't escape. You're at our mercy.]_

I think I was crying. I didn't want it to end there. Every ounce of the fight I had in me had been stripped away, and I was chained by unholy forces to a tree, waiting to be violated and skinned alive by the other demon.

I was defeated, and without any hope. Afraid and beaten, I couldn't muster energy past whispering a begging, "Please..."

The demon laughed again, though this time it decided to back hand me across the face. My head reeled with the blow only as far as the psychic hold would let me, and I felt another bruise begin to form.

Another for the collection.

Not that it would matter soon.

_[Please what?]_ the demon growled in my head. _[Let you go? Don't hurt you? Let you run along and tell the other humans about us, so they come here and hunt us?] _It pressed a clawed finger to its chin, seemingly mulling it over. _[It would provide us with more victims, but I estimate you're the last one we need.]_

I was crying that much snot was running freely from my nose, racing down my mouth and dripping from my chin. "Let me go," I begged, hanging my head as far as I could. I wanted so desperately to escape, but there was no fight left in me. "I'm still just a kid. I'm only seventeen."

The demon backhanded me again. I winced with the blow and felt blood pile up in my mouth, though said nothing back. _[You are old enough by human standards to travel alone into the wilds. Thus, you are old enough to become the next victim.]_ It bared a fanged smile at me, and I felt myself shudder under its gaze. _[Consider yourself lucky. It is the highest honour for anything to become part of the sacrificial gown of a gardevoir.]_

Fucking demons, I cursed to myself. I swore if I ever made it out of there, I would make them all pay. I saw the male one float back a step or two, and saw the other attaching what remained of the hariyama's skin to its dress. It stitched it together with psychic skill, and it blended in flawlessly with the rest of it.

I prayed with all my heart that there wasn't any room left. That somehow, it had completed it. That some miracle would come down and save me.

No such thing happened.

The demoness floated towards me, speckled with blood and gore both. I saw it lift up a claw soaked in blood, and watched with horror as the other demon cradled the digit in its grasp and licked the blood off.

I was going to be sick. I felt it build up and would have vomited, if the demon holding me hadn't clamped my mouth shut and forced it back down into my stomach. That made me feel even worse, and I spent a minute or two repeating the process.

When the demoness came towards me, I suddenly felt the urge to flee again. I thrashed and struggled against my bonds as much as I could, but nothing seemed to work. I couldn't move, no matter how much energy I put into it.

I dropped my head, defeated again. I felt claws graze the bottom of my neck and lift my chin up enough to meet it in the face. The hell-beast stared at me with ravenous hunger, and everything inside me died all over again.

"Why?" I whispered, defeated and alone. "Why me?"

It laughed in my face. I saw a great number of fanged teeth in its colossal mouth, and flinched at the stink of its breath. It hooked a claw into my skin enough to threaten to break it, and guided my face forwards. _[There are many reasons.] _It cackled once more and took another deep breath, as if it were smelling me. _[Most of all; you smell of death.]_

I stared at it, numb for a moment. Then suddenly, I found the ability to speak again. "That's because I kill everything that pisses me off," I growled, as low and even as I could. "And when I get free, I'm going to make sure I kill you in the slowest, most painful way imaginable."

It laughed once more, and it was the one to strike me this time. I felt around my mouth with my tongue, checking to make sure my teeth were all still in place as it inhaled my scent again.

_[You smell of that, but not completely. The death I smell...] _I heard it laugh within my skull, and the pain increased tenfold. _[You reek of the death of those around you.]_

I glared at it, breathing deep and fast behind clenched teeth. "Well the only ones around me are you two. And I'll be sure to-" I was cut off suddenly as the other demon forced my mouth shut again, and I began breathing deep and hard through my nostrils.

The female hell-beast laughed again. _[If only that were the case. You shall-]_

The voice in my head cut off suddenly. I heard the other demon hiss, and abruptly the words in my skull died, leaving me completely alone and suffering in pain. I couldn't understand them anymore, and they communicated with primal growls, grunts and noises I could never hope to comprehend.

When they looked back at me, I knew what was coming. I thrashed against my bonds, desperate for some way to escape. I felt nothing but fear, and would have gladly given my life then and there if it meant I didn't have to suffer at the hands of the demon.

_[Don't be afraid.]_

I felt it coo within my mind, and try to reassure me in some way. I wasn't listening. The pain only made me more scared, and I tried to kick it away, to slap it, even to head butt it away.

Nothing was working.

I felt the demon's claws slide down my body and hook around my belt. I prayed to whatever god that was listening that nothing would happen, that it would become distracted somehow. It sliced open my belt and bottoms both, and they fell to the floor unceremoniously, exposing me to them both.

I couldn't help it.

I pissed myself.

I was a mess. I was crying, snot was dripping from my nose, and I had managed to wet myself in fear. The demons both laughed at me, savouring and embracing my fear. I dimly noticed that by some miracle, the emergency release button for my poké balls still hung from my bandolier, swinging around my legs as opposed to being attached to my belt.

Not that it mattered. In a few moments, the demon would try to rape me and then skin me alive. Unless it somehow managed to lean against the button and press it, I would just be left to suffer.

The demon advanced on me, and I could see it moving its skirt. I was about to be sick again, until the other demon forced it back down into my stomach yet again. I couldn't be sick, I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything but let it happen.

The demon moved on me, and I could smell its breath flood my nose. I felt its mouth close around my neck, and shuddered in complete fear as I felt its teeth and tongue graze against me.

I was going to be sick. And then it was forced down again. I thrashed, screamed and cried, and yet nothing would stop it. I felt the spike on its chest press against me and pierce my chest only a centimetre. But instantly, I felt a plethora of feelings rush through me, and despite my revulsion at it all, my body responded to them.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head as much as I could. I could see the demon grin, and knew I only had moments. I couldn't smack it away – I was too restrained for that. But somewhere in the base of my brain, I realised that I might be able to trick it.

"Please," I begged, and felt it stop to look at me in curiosity.

It laughed, halting its movements for a moment. _[A bit too late to be begging for your life, isn't it?]_

I shook my head. I already knew that plan was futile. But I hoped that the emotions it was pouring into me was enough to hide my train of thought. "Can you... release my arm?" I pleaded, and noticed the intrigued look in its eyes.

It seemed to fold its arms. _[And why would I allow that to happen?]_

I dropped my gaze and stared at the floor. "I've never... I've never been _intimate_ with anyone before," I lied, praying it would somehow work. I sniffed and didn't need to fake the tears. "If this is... to be it... can you at least let me pretend... it isn't exactly what it is?"

The demon pressing against me seemed to soften a moment. It glanced at the other, and I knew they were arguing about it. I knew it was my only hope to escape, and prayed that somehow, it had enough humanity to believe my pleas.

My mind burned again. _[Very well human.]_ It was the male who spoke. _[I shall release an arm. If you make a move for the contraptions of capture on your body, I shall break every bone in your body and make your body produce enough adrenaline to keep you alive until you are fully skinned.]_

I gulped. That wasn't a threat to take lightly. If my plan failed, I knew I would be granted to immense pain and torture before I finally died.

I felt my arm drop loosely, and silently rejoiced at the working of my plan. The button swung around one of my thighs, and I knew the demons would suspect something if I made an instant move for it.

I took a deep breath, swallowed, and forced myself to touch the demon in front of me.

It was horrible.

The moment I touched its skin I felt like I had betrayed my entire body, and wanted nothing more than to flee again, or even better, to cut off my hand and pretend it had never happened. The demon ground against me, and I felt its teeth on my neck once more.

I'm amazed I didn't piss myself a second time.

Instead I grazed down the creature's body, hating every moment of it. I finally felt the button brush against my fingers, and felt hope soar within me. I gripped it as tightly as I could, and smiled grimly at the demon.

"Told you so," I breathed, and pressed the button.

All three of my pokémon appeared in a flash of light. The force sent both demons floating back a few paces, and they looked incredibly angry, whilst mine saw me and looked incredibly confused.

I didn't let them dwell on it. _"Kill them!"_ I screamed, still attached to the tree. _"Rip their fucking hearts out!" _I shrieked, thrashing against invisible bonds.

Xander stayed by my side, blasting away the creatures when they came too close. Loki leapt at the male instantly, clawing and hissing all the while. In the middle of it, Lacey stood unmoving, seeing a second chance to let me die.

Her outright refusal let the demoness attack. It appeared before her and slashed her face, and I heard Lacey shriek in pain like I'd never heard before. She huffed, indignant and angry, and I saw her eyes darken in familiarity. She was going to kill the demon.

And I gave her my full support. "Get the spikes!" I yelled, and thrashed as the demon clamped my mouth shut. Loki bit down on its hand, distracting it enough to lose its hold on my mouth once more. "Rip out the spikes on their chests!"

The demons understood the threat instantly. Their eyes widened in unison, and they both redoubled their efforts.

Unfortunately for them, so did Lacey.

She leapt up and punched the demon in the face, hissing and rejoicing as she knocked it to the floor and continued to punch its face in. Blood and gore sprayed over her, and she continued to beat it, even as it tried to pry her off. Lacey cackled and grabbed the spike on its chest, and with resolute strength, she snapped it off.

The demon screamed like nothing I'd ever heard before.

It screamed and thrashed, bleeding thick, red blood everywhere. Lacey rejoiced as it splashed her, lifted the spike up and plunged it deep into the demon's eye. It pierced it and its brain both, and it thrashed in agony as it died, screaming the whole while.

The other demon seemed distraught that it had died. I saw its eyes cloud over in rage, and it spared the briefest moment to swear revenge on me and Lacey both.

The moment was enough. Loki leapt up and bit a chunk into the demon's spike. It howled in sheer agony, more and more as Loki began to shake the spike back and forth. He finally managed to snap it off, and plunged his claws into the demon's screaming mouth, pulling in either direction until something gave. He cackled in deathly delight as he fell backwards, holding the dying demon's removed jaw in his hands.

As the demon died, its hold on me vanished. I dropped instantly to the floor, adding a few more bruises to my already battered body. I burst into tears then and there, unable to move, and clutched myself for comfort. I heard Lacey stop beating the demon that tried to skin me, and managed to get myself moving enough to crawl over to my gun. I cradled it like it was my sole protector in the world.

Then I just laid there and cried.

I wasn't how long I cried for, maybe a minute, maybe an hour. But I couldn't stop. I trembled, sobbed and wailed, and all the while, I felt Xander and Loki both by my side. I couldn't see Lacey, but I could feel her somewhere nearby, and despite it all, I could feel something akin to sympathy coming off her.

When I heard movement nearby, I snapped up instantly. The gun was ready in my hands, and I knew I wouldn't hesitate to fire on whatever came out of the bushes.

I found it was a person.

He walked up, took a look at the two dead demons and pulled a face. Then he saw me with a gun trained on him and gasped as he held his hands up in surrender. "Whoa there! Don't go round pointing that thing. You don't know what sort of damage you might cause."

I took in his appearance for a moment. Dirty blond hair cropped short. His eyes were dark and grey, and his ears stuck out from the sides of his long, pointy face. He wore a pair of brown slacks and a black t-shirt, and had a black bag slung over his shoulder. Though I noticed he wore a cloak, and on it I could clearly see the four swords of an Elite's emblem, and the small sigils of a latias and latios.

He was a Hoenn champion.

"I know full well what this can do," I barked, keeping my hands as steady as I could. "What the fuck are you doing here?" I hissed, hoping that he had been sent to save me or the like.

"Exploring," he said with a shrug, as if there wasn't a gun between us. "I wanted to see how my pokémon were doing." He looked down and pulled a face again. "Not very well, by the looks of things."

My blood boiled in my veins. "Those _things_ were your pokémon?"

"'Were' being the operative word," he said, turning his head slightly to look at both of his pokémon. He whistled. "You really did a number on them."

"They deserved it," I hissed. "They were skinning things alive."

He waved one of his hands in a circle. "That's 'cause one of them just evolved. She didn't have the dress, so I let her loose with her partner to have a little fun and make her dress."

The pokémon were _partners?_ I found myself in shocked disbelief. Nothing, pokémon or person would let their partner rape things before they eyes... would they?

The champion looked at me with a sneer. "Now I suggest you put that down. You've already caused enough damage."

I stared at him, unmoving. "They were skinning things alive," I hissed. I didn't want to say what else had happened. It hurt to think about it, let alone to say it.

He shrugged and kept his hands up. "I'd say they were doing a lot more than that. In fact-" he glanced down at me, and I was only just aware I still hadn't dressed after getting free. "I'd say they were doing a little more than that. So-" his sneer became a smirk. "Did you have a little fun before you killed them?"

It was a joke to him.

Those _things_ had tried to kill me, and he saw it as nothing more than a joke!

He looked at me, and he laughed. He _laughed_ at the fact the things had tried to rape and kill me!

He laughed.

And I shot him between the eyes.

He managed to barely take in a gasp before his brains exploded against the trees behind him. My pokémon jumped at the noise, and stared at me in alarm as the trainer fell to the floor, dead.

I lowered my gun, though didn't drop it on the floor. I looked around my pokémon, and found that after their initial shock, they didn't seem too bothered. I saw something I couldn't identify in Lacey's eyes, and it would take me a while to figure out what.

At first I thought it was fear. I later realised it was respect. She had hated me because she felt I used her to kill things when I couldn't. By killing the champion myself, I seemed to prove to her that I wasn't afraid to kill myself.

It's strange, the things you do that earn your pokémon's respect, isn't it?

I told Loki to look for my backpack as I stepped up to the dead trainer. He was clearly dead, and his eyes were still fixed in the same look of shock. I sneered at him and kicked his body over.

Served the bastard right.

I raided his backpack and found a pair of black combats that looked and smelt clean enough. I pulled them on and found nothing else of use in there, save for a few items of food and a few poké. I took them both and searched his wallet, cleaning it out. I didn't even bother looking at his identification whilst I was peering through it. In my opinion, he could die without a name for what he did.

I left them and collected my stuff from my belt and pants, still at the bottom of the tree. Loki returned a moment later with my pack above his head, and I thanked him and tossed him a fire stone in thanks. He cackled in celebration, and I placed the pack over my shoulders. I staggered up to the demons, and looked at them both, dead as their trainer.

Rage fuelled me completely. I screamed to the heavens and began to kick at their corpses, mutilating them beyond all identification. Bones crunched underneath my blows, but I didn't stop. I was so angry, so afraid, and so hateful towards them.

My rage spent, I staggered away from them and threw up in the nearby bushes. I ended up dry heaving for a good few moments before I collapsed once more, sobbing again. I couldn't stop crying, and wanted nothing more than to forget it ever happened.

Everything was a blur to me at that point. I managed to pack all my stuff away, feed my pokémon and trek back through the forest towards Dewford without ever being aware of it.

I knew I must have looked a state. I was covered in blood, bits of bone and who knew what else, but I didn't care. I don't think I slept in the days it took me to walk back to the town. Instead I was a perpetual zombie, staggering constantly through the forest, eating, drinking and pissing all without ever registering what I was doing.

I made it back to the town and was dimly aware that Lacey was walking alongside me, though I didn't care much.

I just knew I needed to get out of there.

I made way to the docks, and found that my ticket was only just valid. Another hour and I would have had to buy a new one. I think I laughed and ignored the crew member, and focused more on finding my room. Lacey helped me along the way, and eventually I found it, along the middle deck and tucked away from the large, crowded parts of the ship.

I got into the room, bolted the door behind me and collapsed, not wanting to ever suffer the horrors of the outside world again.


	21. Small Reprieves

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Small Reprieves

* * *

**

_We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ''Blessed are they that mourn.'' ~ _C.S. Lewis

**-O-O-O-**

"_Animals suffer, pokémon suffer, humans suffer. The only thing is, people will either suffer in silence, or they'll tell the world about it. In the case of the latter, they make everyone else suffer through having to listen to everything they had to go through._

_Suffering in silence though, is probably far worse. Instead of getting your grief out, you let it fester within you, building more and more until eventually it starts to lead your actions, whether your realise it or not._

_It's probably why men go mad whilst women are able to cope. Most women share their problems with another, whereas most men will bury their problems deep within them. By burying their problems, most of the time, people manage to go mad._

_And then everyone else suffers in ways no one could ever have imagined._

- Will Fontaine, 39th Sinnoh League Champion, Sinnoh Elite Four Member 3003 – 3018. _(June 16__th__, 3013)_

**-O-O-O-**

I spent almost the entire first two days in my room, hugging myself in the shower. I ended up just eating rations from my bag, and shared out food for my pokémon. But aside from that, I didn't ever leave the safety of the shower.

No matter how hard I scrubbed, I just didn't feel clean.

I must have removed an entire layer of skin, but I still didn't feel like it had washed off of me. I could still feel the demon's touch on my hands, on my neck, on my body, and shuddered and sobbed every time I scrubbed and it didn't come off.

By the end of the second day in my room, I was a mess. I didn't even notice when the shower water had begun to run cold, as I simply sat on the bottom of it and hugged myself tight, slowly rocking back and forth, crying all the while. I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to forget. I wanted to forget that I'd ever headed into those caves, caught that makuhita, found that shedinja, then come across the demons.

I couldn't bear to face the world, and I couldn't do anything but suffer in fright at every small noise or touch. I couldn't sleep, and every time I did manage to drop off, I woke up screaming, reliving the nightmare again and again.

I think I made my pokémon genuinely worried.

At the end of the second day, Xander crawled into the bathroom, and when he found me at the bottom of the shower, he croaked and crawled in next to me. He saw me flinch away from his touch, but he sat close to me, under the water, and let me know he was there.

It made me realise how much I'd neglected them, and in turn, how cold I actually was. I was shivering all over, not just from fear, and ended up hugging my pokémon, trying to share some of his warmth. He croaked once more, and suddenly I felt another presence in the shower. I nearly leapt out of my skin, though calmed when I heard the familiar grunts and growls of Loki, and looked up to see him smiling at me, being splashed with water and trying in vain to shield himself from the downpour whilst trying to comfort me at the same time.

Even Lacey was there, though she remained outside of the shower, and even offered me a small, tentative smile.

I realised then, that no matter how much I was suffering, I had friends that were looking out for me, and friends that depended on me, regardless of the difference in our species.

I pulled myself together, thanked my pokémon and dragged myself out of the shower, forcing myself to get dressed and face the world. I passed the mirror and noticed how sorry I truly looked. My face was sunken, my eyes were bloodstained from crying so much, as well as being puffy and sore. Huge bags circled underneath my eyes, and I'd never seen myself looking so pale. Everything about me just looked so broken – so hollow. It was how I felt.

But I knew that I had to continue onwards with my journey. I was lucky to still be alive, and took comfort in that fact. I didn't know whether or not the demons and their trainer had been discovered, but I didn't care in the slightest. I needed to deal with it.

And I did so in the easiest way; I balled it all up and pushed it down as far as I could. I forced myself to move past it.

I shook myself and rubbed my hands across my face as hard as I could. They were dry and rough, and it managed to shake me out of my stupor a little bit. "C'mon guys," I said to my pokémon, drawing looks from all of them. "Let's go get some food or something. Explore the boat maybe."

They all looked so happy that I was moving and carrying on with my life again. Even Lacey, though I still had no idea what had brought about the personality change.

I ended up walking along deck with them and found a small restaurant to buy some food at. It was that bastard trainer's money that bought us some food, and I figured it was probably the only good anything of his had ever managed to achieve. My pokémon dove into their food eagerly, whilst I picked at it, not hungry in the slightest.

It was Lacey who noticed, and her that prodded me and tried to get me to eat more.

"I'm not hungry," I whispered, mutinously. "I just... I just can't bring myself to eat anything," I admitted. I was still in shock. I just couldn't force myself to do anything. Eating, drinking, sleeping... it all seemed out of reach to me. I didn't feel in need of any of it. I just felt dead, hollow inside.

She shook her head at me and pushed my tray into me. I sent her a look, which she matched with equal ferocity. I sighed and relented, biting into whatever food I had bought myself. I didn't taste anything - I didn't even register what it looked like, or even how it smelt. It was just food, and I spent my entire time forcing myself to go through the motions of chewing and swallowing.

I looked at my pokémon and wondered what had brought about the sudden change. It wasn't like she had any love for me before we got on the boat, after all. "What's changed?" I ended up asking her. She looked at me, yellow eyes sparkling with confusion. "You're suddenly nice to me. Back in Dewford, you seemed quite happy to let that shedinja kill me, and then even happier to let those demons skin me alive! Now you're looking out for me!" I became aware that I was nearly shouting, and blushed as I felt people look around to us all. I cowered into myself, trying to make myself as small as I could before I whispered, "Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?"

She dropped her head and whispered something that sounded like an apology. When I raised a brow at her, she pointed towards my leg, where I kept my gun, and mimed killing something. It took me a while to try and understand her, and a few more attempts to get what she was actually talking about.

"It's because I shot that trainer?" I guessed, voice low. She nodded slowly, and begun to mime more actions. I felt like I was playing charades in the dark. It took a considerable amount of time, and I could see that her patience was near enough wearing thin by the end of it. Regardless, I finally managed to understand what she meant.

I'd always been ordering her to kill things, ever since I first captured her. She hated me for it, thinking I was just exploiting her to kill things, just because I couldn't. She didn't think I was worthy of having her as a pokémon, or even as a friend. But when I killed that trainer, I proved to her that I could kill something myself. It made her realise that I was only getting her to kill things when I couldn't physically do it myself, not because I was afraid to, or simply exploiting her.

I didn't know what to feel about it. I'd earned my nuzleaf's respect by murdering someone. I knew that if I ever found myself repeating the situation again – and I prayed to every deity in existence I would never – that I would do exactly the same thing. But the fact that I'd killed him, then destroyed the body of the demons in my rage showed her that I was like her.

She understood that I had my own inner darkness. She thought I had only acted as I had before because I didn't want to stain my soul.

I think... I think she started to see who I truly was that day. My pokémon managed to look past the fact that I was human, and instead saw what I had done, and what I was actually capable of. She saw the darkness that marred my soul, and decided that I was worthy of being her friend, and that I was worthy enough to work with.

I began to wonder if I would make a good dark specialist, if only because of that.

Regardless of how I felt towards earning her respect and obedience, I felt relieved that she was on side. It meant I wouldn't have to constantly be looking over my shoulder, fearful of everything she did, wondering just whether or not she was planning to kill me. I knew that it could all have been a trick, but something about her told me it wasn't.

That and the fact she seemed to want to learn how to use a gun.

I realised that after we explored most of the ship. It didn't seem that different to the one I took to Dewford, only slightly bigger. I avoided everyone I could on the way, not wanting to talk to anyone. I didn't admit it to myself, or even to my pokémon, but every person I saw had the demon's face. Every time they looked at me, I caught a flash of the demon before my eyes, and barely managed to restrain myself from acting upon it. I wasn't sure whether I would have killed them, ran away, screamed, or burst into tears. Maybe all four. But I kept trying to force the feelings down as far as they could go, burying them as deep as I could.

When we got back to the room, I constantly kept catching Lacey admiring my gun out of the corner of her eye. I'd left it on a bedside table, and every so often, I would see her staring at it, possibly imagining what it would be like to use one.

It left me with a mixture of feelings.

I'd heard of pokémon using firearms before, but those were the ones that were more intelligent, like alakazam. While they didn't need to be able to use them, firearms seemed to fascinate some pokémon. It may have been because it was something that humans had built to use as a weapon, rather than pokémon drawing on mysterious energies within themselves to form weapons. Every weapon they had was in some way a part of them, yet human weapons were always produced with harming another in mind.

It fascinated them.

I considered what would happen if I taught Lacey to use a gun. I knew that she would still have fingers when she evolved into a shiftry, though they would be hidden underneath the leaves that would grow to cover her hands. It would also be interesting to have someone by my side who could use a gun to protect me.

At the same time, she had her own abilities that she could use to fight. I didn't really need her learning how to use one, and didn't want her to if it meant she wouldn't learn as much with her own abilities.

Though I realised it could end up an incentive for her.

"You want to learn how to use it, don't you?" I asked her, catching her staring at it again. Her eyes rolled in their sockets to meet mine, and she nodded slowly, almost shyly. It was the first time I'd seen her express anything that wasn't confidence towards anything. Maybe it was because it was something she could never learn to do on her own, or it could have even been that she was feeling guilty about how she treated me before.

I ignored the reasons behind it and instead walked over to the firearm and picked it up. I twisted it in my grip, cleaned it with speed and proficiency drilled into me throughout my life and then twirled it around a finger. "I'll teach you how to use it," I said.

Her eyes lit up in obvious delight. Her face remained completely impassive, but she never learnt how to really hide what she was feeling.

I looked at her, offered the gun before I snatched it away as she reached for it. "But there's a condition for it," I said, meeting her gaze. "You have to put in extra effort with your drills. Human weapons might interest you for a while, but I don't want you falling behind on your own, natural abilities." I placed the gun back down on the bedside table and kept my eyes fixed on her. "If you manage to show a large improvement from your drills in two weeks, I'll begin teaching you how to use a gun."

She considered it a moment before she nodded, slowly, uncertainly. I smiled at her response, pleased I'd managed to get her obedience and extra effort in training, almost all in one.

I quickly led her and the other out of the room, finding somewhere on board to run drills for a little while. In my wallowing, I'd left them to slack off for two days, and myself too. Pushing myself in drills alongside my pokémon helped me to forget. As an added bonus, it also let me see how committed Lacey was to learning how to use a firearm.

As it turned out, she was _extremely_ committed.

* * *

Since I'd left Dewford, nights were horrible for me. The whole time, I could only ever hear the sounds of the outside, and my imagination would go wild, thinking up incredible, horrible situations for them all. I could hear the sea parting beneath the boat, and the patter of feet along deck as people returned to their rooms.

My brain made a story for every small sound there was. And in every small story, the end was always the same; I would be murdered in some horrible, brutal way.

I whimpered, shuddered and drew myself further under the covers. I felt like crying again, though continued to try and press it down. It felt like I was pressing on a balloon – whenever I pushed down one part, another would swell up. I just didn't feel safe, even though all my pokémon were in the room with me. Loki slept by my feet, and Xander was happily asleep in the shower in the bathroom. Lacey took the other bed, though I could tell by the shine from her eyes she was still awake.

I stirred and sat up slowly, careful not to displace Loki. "Lace?" I whispered, and saw her eyes turn to meet me. I could see that she had trouble sleeping too, and wondered whether she also suffered nightmares about all the people she'd killed. I wondered whether she was like me, and saw their faces every night as she slept, or whether she never thought about them again.

She grunted and brought me back to reality. I smiled sheepishly in the dark and cleared my throat. "Is there something you can make... that will make me sleep?" I asked.

She grunted again, and I saw her eyes narrow to pinpricks. I briefly wondered whether I'd offended her by asking for her help, until I saw that she actually looked _worried_. I was confused as to why for a moment, and then realised what I had actually asked her. As far as she was aware, I could have been asking to sleep forever.

"I just want to be able to sleep on a night," I admitted. "I can't sleep, because every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing the demons there." I felt my voice crack and hated myself anew. I needed to be stronger than that! I needed to be strong enough to help change the world! I knew my own worries weren't much of a concern in comparison.

Her eyes widened a fraction in realisation, and then I saw her nod. I followed her as she got off her bed and walked towards my backpack. She rooted around in there before she pulled out a set of small pots that plants seemed to be growing from.

My own eyes widened. I had _no_ idea I had such things in there! She must have snuck them in at some point when I wasn't realising!

Sneaky little bitch.

Though admittedly, I was impressed.

She hissed something as she plucked a few leaves from a plant and then some from the other, and placed the pots back into my bag. She placed the leaves in a cup the room provided, and boiled the kettle enough for the water to only be just-hot. When she poured the water in, I instantly was able to smell a mixture of herbs, and was completely in awe of her abilities. The only thing in amongst them all I could indentify was lavender. Everything else was a mystery.

She brought the cup back to me and handed it to me as delicately as she could. I thanked her and breathed in its scent, marvelling at it. Though I couldn't help but be intrigued at one thing. "Why don't you take this yourself?" I asked her.

She seemed to roll her eyes as she realised she'd have to pantomime something again. She pointed towards my cup, and then made a series of gestures I finally guessed at meaning too much. A few more and I managed to finally understand what she was on about. Too much of it, and it wasn't effective anymore. I knew that she'd consumed tiny amounts of each poison she'd used before, in order to build up a resistance to them. The drink she made me had almost the same course of action. She'd consumed too much of it, and her body had built up a tolerance towards the sleep-inducing chemicals within.

I pulled a face. That ruled out my plan of relying on the drink for a while. I resolved to stock up on sleeping pills the next time I was in a shop that sold them, and decided I would share them with Lacey, if only to try and pay her back.

I sniffed at the drink cautiously, and caught sight of the amusement in her eyes. I laughed to myself, and both of us realised it would be a long time before we completely trusted any drink the other gave us. I managed to drain the contents of the bowl in one, and instantly felt tired. I crawled back under my covers and whispered my thanks to her. Then I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

* * *

Most of the time on the boat was spent with my pokémon after that. I felt so guilty for leaving them to fend themselves while I grieved about everything that had happened. I was making progress with them all, and saw that I had the obedience of each and every one of them – save for the occasional slips by Loki. He had a habit of stealing things at every chance, and I was starting to think he had the start of kleptomania. I had to be sure to work it out of him, but ensure his skills were fresh enough to be called on at any time.

That was a conundrum in itself.

Other than that, my team seemed to be progressing well. Lacey was making good work with learning her poisoning technique, and was able to produce several non-fatal toxins from the tips of the leaves covering her hands. We'd achieved it by having her concentrate enough to force certain substances out of her body and through the tips of her leaves. We started off small, using things like lavender, which we could smell coming off her. From there we had to work at getting her to naturally produce certain toxins and control them within her body. It ended up with her being ill quite often, and managing to accidentally pass some of the infection onto me at one point.

It meant we both spent one day throwing up the entire contents of the past few days.

She was still slightly ill on the last day, though the worst of it had passed. I didn't completely understand everything to do with the technique, and knew that it was her that had learnt almost everything about it – all I saw was a bunch of complicated words and numbers.

Loki was still struggling to get a grip on his psychic powers, though I saw Xander was starting to learn the basics of forming mist. Every so often, I would see his breath cloud when he breathed out, and tried to get him to repeat it as often as he could. I knew water types could alter the temperature of the water they controlled, so they could make it boil or freeze. The former was good for scalding foes, the latter for learning ice-based attacks.

Surprisingly, he was learning it quite quickly. I couldn't talk to anyone about it – I had no phone signal on the boat, and didn't feel like approaching anyone still – though I put it down to myself maybe being slightly in tune with ice pokémon.

I just found it a pity I wasn't in a cold country. If I was, I could have captured a team of ice types and trained them far easier than my current team.

But I had to make do with what life had thrown at me.

I found myself pacing the deck at night the last night, waiting for the boat to arrive in Slateport. It would supposedly dock at oh-three hundred twenty five, and I wanted to be out of my room and off the boat as quickly as I could. I stayed away from the top deck, as it was where mostly all the people had gathered. Instead I stood at the rear of the ship on the bottom deck, watching the sea pass by underneath the boat.

I was still nervy around people, even after almost a week. I just couldn't face anyone coming near enough to touch me, and had nearly snapped a waiter's hand when he tapped me to get my attention on the fourth day.

Needless to say, I was banned from that specific restaurant.

However, my nerves lead me to panicking every time I was alone and heard someone coming. So when I was stood there that night and heard someone's voice carrying towards me, I yelped and hid in a nearby doorway, shaking like a leaf, ready to pounce and attack.

I should have called out a pokémon, I realised later on, but my fear towards people at that time lead to me learning something that would be of dire help.

I couldn't make out many words of what the person was saying, though realised quickly it was a man. I was about to sneak away and pretend I wasn't there, until I heard him say something.

"... turns out Petalburg was a success."

I don't know what made me stop to listen, but I found that my body froze on the spot. I knew that Petalburg had only just recovered from the strange virus that had broken out in it, and merely assumed that he was part of some organisation that had profited from it. Naively, I assumed he was referring to the help so many people gave out, and I wanted to know how well people worked together. If I failed, at least I would know how well the country could react and help each other.

I saw him glance around himself nervously, and pressed myself further into the doorway. I prayed the door I was standing in front of wasn't likely to open anytime soon and give my position away.

"... casualties were totalled at two. No, not two _anything_. Just two."

I squinted at him, trying to make him out. As far as I could tell, he looked like a normal businessman – white shirt, beige trousers and brown shoes. He was dressed to blend in, and I felt instantly suspicious.

"The containment spill caused casualties. Oldale had none. The new mixture is too deadly. It needs to be checked again."

My breath caught as I tried to think of what it meant. They had to be testing created viruses on settled populations, disguising them as 'spills' or industrial accidents! Surely people would be able to realise when every town started getting ill?

Unless they did it methodically. Starting from Oldale, if they worked around to all the closest towns and cities, people would merely assume that it was spreading, if the symptoms were all close enough.

"Remodel it," he hissed into the phone, and quickly checked around himself again. "Tests in the labs are too small sample sizes. We need a better grasp of the effects on the population. Better for us to test it in a town and have twelve people die, then release it to public wholesale and have twelve _percent_ die."

My heart was racing. They were testing airborne drugs in a town! Or maybe not airborne, but they had to be releasing it somehow! It had to be illegal! There had to be a great number of breaches of _every_ sort of ethical conduct! It had to be a large pharmaceutical company producing something that they thought they could use everywhere.

Which brought the main question; what company would honestly be doing such a thing?

There had to be a great number of companies capable of such a thing in the country. It meant I'd have to find out what company was behind it all.

And then what? It was far too early to be the cause of destruction for the world. I'd been told it was something I needed to change by the end of the year. Surely it wouldn't start that early, I told myself. I could report them to the police, but then what? It was my word against a whole company's, and were they really likely to believe me against them?

Suddenly he swapped into speaking a different language, and I had no idea what he said.

"_Spostare su lotto numero cinquantaquattro. Sarò di ritorno alla sede centrale entro un'ora."_

I blinked from my spot and inclined my head round the doorframe. What the hell did that mean? I saw him throw a poké ball off the boat, and saw the explosion take shape. When it faded though, I couldn't see anything but a pair of red eyes that floated ominously in the dark. I heard the telltale shrieks of a flying pokémon, though it wasn't enough to tell me what it was.

Its eyes turned to me, and I quickly ducked back into the doorframe. My breath raced once more, and I barely heard the man climb aboard the pokémon. My only indication he had left was the sounds of wings beating, and the caw of the pokémon fading off into the distance.

I poked my head around the doorframe and looked after it. I couldn't see anything, so stepped out and squinted cautiously, observing the distance. I saw nothing, and gathered that the man had long since departed.

What did it all mean?

I thought about it as much as I could. There had to be some sort of company testing a drug by releasing it into the public, and then observing the results. Surely if people didn't die, and they achieved the results they wanted, then they could begin marketing it. But it meant they were risking exposing the properties of their drug or whatever it was to the world, and had to be paying loads of people loads of money to stop them all from looking into it.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes. It was too much to think about. I wanted someone to talk to, someone that I could debate it all with. Why couldn't that bastard imp have taken someone back with me? How much did it really expect me to do on my own?

I growled and leant against the railings. I'd have to start researching every damn pharmaceutical company in Hoenn and look into whether or not they were capable of such a thing. I didn't know what factors meant they would be, but gathered they had to have a large amount of money, as well as locations in a vast number of labs in different locations.

It was a lot to be expected of me.

I sighed and pushed myself off the railing, heading towards the main deck of the ship. I needed to find somewhere that I could do a little bit of research on all the companies in Hoenn. I'd spent enough time over the trip sleeping, whether catching up on what I'd lost, or merely wasting some time. I couldn't travel much over the ship, and found that Lacey's little cocktails would knock me out for a good ten hours at a time. I could sacrifice another night's sleep if I managed to figure out what was going on with the man's conversation.

I needed to know whether or not what he was doing would turn out to be a threat. If it turned out to be nothing, I could rest easy knowing it wasn't something I needed to change. And if it was something I needed to change, it would mean I finally knew what I was doing in the world.

Besides, sleeping meant I relived the demon experience. I wanted to experience that again as much as I wanted to pull out my own toenails.

The boat pulled into the harbour on time, and I left as quickly as I could. The large crowds wanting to leave made me extremely on edge, and I flinched every time someone brushed against me. I spent every moment trying not to attack people or scream at every touch.

I really wasn't getting over the experience anytime soon.

From what I could see of Slateport, it looked like a mechanical marvel. I could see the large beaches stretching all around it, slightly further inland than where the docks were. Through the dark sky I could see lights in the distance, lighting up the entire coastline. There were cranes left unmanned within my line of sight, and I could hear cars and other vehicles in the far distance. More cranes showed me the shipyard, and I could see skeletons of old ships on display.

It took me about an hour, but I managed to find a small internet cafe in the city. On my way I passed over a number of small rivers and multiple bridges, and saw a great number of parks and green areas, as well as a great number of old-looking buildings.

I figured it would look a lot less majestic in the daylight. Things always looked better at night, I felt, and wondered if I would be in the city long enough to truly enjoy it.

Once in the cafe I spent yet more of my ever-depleting funds to rent a computer for a few hours, and order a few coffees to keep me awake. Of course, I spent the first thirty minutes trying to work out just _how_ to use the internet. By my time, it had been destroyed, and there was no longer any such thing. Computers were used simply to store data, and as quick methods for planning everything out.

In all the time I was using it, I didn't find anything of true use. There were supposedly three major pharmaceutical groups in Hoenn, though none of them had labs anywhere near populated areas. The only places that had locations near or in towns were the various charity organisations. A great number of cancer research, disease research, pokémon protection and hospices all had various locations across the country, and I doubted somehow that a group trying to cure cancer would want to release a drug into large areas of civilisation.

The five largest charity organisations in Hoenn were the Hoenn Heart Foundation, the G.P.P.A., Cancer Research Hoenn, Pathornogix and the C.P.O. – the child protection organisation – in that order. The only one that took a little digging to find out their cause was Pathornogix, and apparently they were researching ways to cut the number of stillbirths in humans and pokémon both, as well as provide relief work for any sort of natural disaster situation.

None of them could be capable of doing what I'd heard.

Maybe it was some form of underground group. I'd heard Adryan mention the 'Rockets', and did a little research on them too. Apparently ten years before the current time I was in, an underground terrorist group known as 'Team Rocket' had taken over Kanto and Johto both. They'd worked their way up from the underground, buying people off here and there, securing persons in every aspect of life there was – from judges to the homeless. They took over the entire Kan-Jo continent, and were apparently disbanded when their leader was attacked and killed by a young trainer.

Though there were reports of areas still being under their influence. Rumours were flung around on the internet about all sorts of people being on their payroll – gym leaders and Elites included.

I didn't doubt that last one. After meeting the Sinnoh Elite member Aaron, I wouldn't have been surprised if every one of them was corrupt.

I ended up aimlessly browsing the internet for the last thirty minutes of my time. I was nothing short of amazed by the wealth of information it provided. It seemed like _anything_ I wanted to find out, I could. It was _incredible!_ _Everything_ was there, from training techniques to records of births and deaths for the past _thousand _years!

I considered maybe searching anyone from my family. I could have typed in my surname easily and found people that shared it. Anyone of them could have been an ancient relative of mine.

But something stopped me from searching them. I knew my surname wasn't exactly going to be rare, and figured it would probably drive me crazy – knowing who my grandparents or other distant relatives were, and wanting nothing more to search them out.

Though it wasn't exactly like I could introduce myself to them. 'Hi, I'm your grandson from eighty years in the future,' didn't exactly sound like the words a sane person would speak.

However, in the last few moments, I ended up yelping and leaping a good few feet away from my computer screen. A load of strange pictures kept leaping up on my screen, and I began panicking at the sheer volume of them all.

I had no idea so much porn existed in the world!

I didn't know where the hell it had all come from, and didn't know what to do at first. Loads of images kept jumping up on my screen, and I stained my memory with more naked people than I could ever dare to imagine. I panicked and looked around, wondering just how the hell I could stop it all. Everything and anything was flooding my screen, from straight to lesbian to gay, and even images of pokémon and humans!

Eventually I leapt at the plug and yanked it out as quickly as I could. My cheeks were burning bright red, and I was flustered with embarrassment, looking this way and that to see if people were looking at me.

Thankfully, the few people in there had their attentions elsewhere.

I pulled a face and chuckled sheepishly to myself. I considered maybe having someone teach me how to use the internet, and maybe explain to me just how to make sure something like that never happened again. I'd always heard stories about the world I was in now, and had never believed that people could access so much with so little effort.

Well, at least I'd found the stories were real.

My ears were still burning red when I paid my tab, and I left the cafe as quickly as I could. The cold morning air felt good on my skin, and I ended up laughing to myself again as the sun crept up higher in the sky.

Eventually I pulled a face and shook my head, deciding that maybe I wouldn't go near a computer again unless I was supervised. As... _interesting_ as the experience was, I didn't feel like repeating it.

At least, not in a public place.

All in all, I think the trip to the internet cafe wasn't a true waste of time, considering I learnt a lot about the major groups within Hoenn, as well as a few more things about my pokémon. It seemed that on the internet, new research was being published all the time, far faster than the pokédex was updating. Most of the stories were nothing more than rumours, though it did include various different topics of what different attacking abilities pokémon could learn, as well as new natural abilities they were starting to exhibit. Supposedly vaporeon were being found with the ability to resist anything like poisoning or being burnt whilst it was raining, among others.

The internet seemed like a powerful tool and weapon, and I wondered just how people would end up coping when the main systems for it all were destroyed. I knew that each country didn't want another finding out their secrets, so they all sent in secret operatives to demolish each other country's internet sources. It meant that when every team was successful, everyone was without it.

I had no doubt people would have panicked and gone crazy.

I considered what to do in Slateport for the rest of the day there. I didn't truly feel like going to the gym any time soon, and had no real urge to go and explore any of the local museums. I was stumped for ideas. I could have released my pokémon and let them have a run-round, but I doubted it would go well when the city became populous with people trying to get here and there.

I knew Adryan was still in the Origin Cluster, as he still hadn't let me know he'd got out. He had mentioned, after all, that he would be in there over a month, and I figured it had been a little over five weeks since he had left.

Besides, I didn't like the thought of randomly texting him whilst he was somewhere in a cave. There were a few times he'd sent me a text saying something, though the beeps of my phone had alerted wild pokémon to me, and made them attack. If they were only normal pokémon in comparison to those in the Cluster, I didn't want to send him a text randomly and have all the pokémon in there chasing after him.

From what he had told me, he'd only been caught out by his phone once, and that had only angered a few golbat that his castform had easily put aside with a wide-spread cold attack. But the way he mentioned that he hadn't encountered any wild ditto made me realise one thing; ditto to him were like gardevoir to me.

While I had always feared the demons, if only from horror stories alone, my experience with them was enough to put me off them for life – even to make me want to go on a mass genocide of their species. Whilst I doubted Ayd had been through anything like I had with ditto, they had still dissolved one of his best friends before his eyes.

No doubt they were his demons.

I put the thoughts aside and decided to text Mia to see if she was actually anywhere nearby. It was highly likely that she was still in Dewford... but I just felt like I needed some human company. I hadn't spoke to anyone since I'd talked to Brawly in the Dewford gym, and I was starting to feel a little lonely for human company.

It must have been nothing short of a miracle when she texted back within five minutes, letting me know she'd been in Slateport since the day before. She also threatened to gouge out my eyes with a spoon for waking her up, but I just brushed that aside as typical for her. She told me to get to the pokémon centre, and she'd be up and ready within half an hour to do something.

It took me a good twenty minutes to find the pokémon centre, and I was confused as to why it was so far away from any of Slateport's entrances and exits. In every other place I'd visited before, there was always a pokémon centre at least ten minutes away from every entrance and exit into the town. Larger places like Rustboro had around five centres, and I was certain Slateport had about the same amount.

I was just thankful Mia had told me which one to meet her in. I had no doubt if I had turned up to the wrong one, she just might have carried through one of her threats to me.

When I got into the pokémon centre, I found that she was already up and collecting her pokémon. She grinned when she saw me and yelled, 'Hiya!' as she wrapped herself around me in a hug.

She hugged me, and I saw the demons in my mind again.

I made a noise that was something like a strangled scream at the memory, and broke free of her grip, panting and breathing hard.

She backed away in alarm and looked me over. Her face showed that she was genuinely worried and concerned. "What was that about?"

I smiled sheepishly and thought of the best explanation I could. I didn't want to admit what had happened, so I sought for something that I could use as a cover-up. Thankfully I had one I didn't have to lie for. "I'm covered in bruises," I told her, gingerly pressing a hand onto my opposite arm. "You just managed to catch a lot of them at once."

She lifted and eyebrow, not believing me, though she still apologised nonetheless. The moment I let down my guard, however, she decided to whip my top up to see the damage. I nearly leapt out of my skin at the suddenness of it, and she merely laughed and conceded the point to me.

I began to reconsider wanting to meet up with her.

"They do look painful," she agreed, tapping a finger against her chin. "I can see why you nearly screamed like a baby." She looked at me, bore a fanged grin and then began to poke my bruised arms and chest. "Though it's entertaining for me!"

I winced and leapt back as she poked the one caused by the scizor. "Remind me _why_ I wanted to meet with you again?" I grumbled, gingerly rubbing my screaming arms.

"I'm awesome, do you need any more of a reason?" she asked, laughing all the while. "C'mon," she said, linking an arm round mine and ushering me out of the centre. I tried my best to ignore the frantic beating of my heart, unable to picture her on my arm, and instead seeing the horrifying demon. She turned to face me, and instead I saw the demon's dead face, kicked in and beaten, showered with bits of bone and blood.

"Let's go do something in town," the demon spoke in Mia's voice, and the deathly vision was replaced with reality. My heart still continued to race, though, my brain still believing it was all a horrible ruse constructed by the horrific thing.

She looked up and me and grinned. "I don't feel like staying in this centre all the time. Besides-" she lowered her voice to a whisper. "I think the nurse on duty is scared of me."

I laughed. It wasn't exactly hard to discern why. No doubt she'd gone into another one of her crazy threats, and the poor nurse had taken it to heart. I had to wonder whether or not she would end up being carted away to a mental hospital at one point. I laughed to myself, and when she looked at me curiously, I explained my train of thought to her.

"They tried that once before," she deadpanned, shrugging slightly. "I got Charles to beat them up then made a run for it."

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. Her face was straight the whole while, and I had no idea whether or not she was joking. We stopped walking, and it was a good few minutes before she jabbed me in the ribs and revealed that it was all just a joke.

To be totally honest, I wasn't fully convinced it was.

Though I figured if I ever ended up in a mental institute, at least I'd have some company.

"So what do you wanna do today then?" I asked her, changing the subject quickly. "I've got no idea what there is to do in Slateport, and you've been here a day already." In truth, I just wanted to get away from her and hide. It wasn't anything against Mia, it was just that my brain was still convinced it was the demon talking to me, even if my eyes and ears said otherwise. I pushed the thoughts down as low as they could go, and continued to reassure myself that Mia was simply Mia.

She shrugged. "I'm clueless. I was going to move on today up until you text me. Though there's a pokémon contest on later today that we could check out."

I lifted a brow in curiosity. I remembered Ayd mentioning them to me once, and that the people and pokémon participating were levels higher than normal trainers. A large part of me didn't fully believe it, yet I trusted that he wouldn't have lied to me about something like that. Regardless, I felt I had to see it to believe it.

"Sounds good," I told her, nodding slightly. "What else can we do?"

"Geez," she drawled and knocked her head on my shoulder. "You're not exactly full of ideas, are you? Did you never consider that you'll impress a woman by knowing where and what you want to do, rather than just letting her choose everyone?"

To be totally honest, with visions of gardevoir haunting me every time I close my eyes, I wasn't entirely convinced I _wanted_ to impress a woman. Though I played along regardless, embracing the distraction she offered me as I asked, "So are you saying you want me to impress you?"

She spared me the barest glance. "I still have a rusty knife in my bag you know."

"Never mind!" I yelped quickly. Though, I had to ask, "... do you honestly carry a rusty knife in your bag?"

She grinned. "Pray you never annoy me enough to find out." I saw her start glancing around the area in thought, and heard her hum a tune as she tapped a finger against her chin. "We could capture a whole load of tentacool and release them in the frozen seafood counter in the nearest shop?"

I burst out laughing. "I don't think we've got enough poké balls, or nets for that. But I like the idea. We could dress up as the grim reaper and go stalking old people?"

She was the one to burst into laughter. "I don't have my costume on me at the moment, but maybe another time?" Her laughter died as once again she began to think. "We should train our pokémon sometime today too." She glanced up at me. "Mind if we go and visit the gym? I could use a little bit of info on training my pokémon."

I blinked. "Sure. I didn't know gyms helped people train their pokémon," I admitted, cursing myself for not knowing the little piece of information.

"Mh-hm," she grunted. "Granted it's only in the type the gym uses."

Well, that explained why the past two gyms I'd visited hadn't helped me. I didn't own any rock or fighting pokémon, so they couldn't have helped me in the slightest. It meant I'd have to travel around and find somewhere that had a grass, ghost or dark gym. I knew there was a water one, but Ayd had explained to me it was all the way on the eastern borders of the country, accessible only by ship.

In short, I'd be on my own for a while. No real change there.

Though I wondered where the psychic one was in Hoenn, and hoped that they could remove memories from my brain. I didn't want to have to suffer every time I closed my own eyes.

"I could use a little help with the aron I captured," Mia admitted, drawing me from my thoughts. "He's the first steel pokémon I've ever had, so I'm a little clueless as to how to train him. Besides, I beat the gym there yesterday," she said with a laugh. "If they complain, I can just kick their butts again!"

I stared at her, confused. "I thought you only got into Slateport yesterday? How comes you managed to get a battle time that quickly?"

"I was lucky," she answered. "I'd just got in there, and the person before me had cancelled his battle time. So they let me take it... with a little _persuasion_, of course."

Bribing them to get early gym times. I considered the idea myself. It meant I'd be able to get everything done much quicker, but I'd also have to give up some of my money. And no doubt, if I lost, I wouldn't be reimbursed.

"I'd say you shouldn't try it there for a while yet though," she told me, looking at me over her glasses. "Steel pokémon are tough – I only just managed to beat them. I was lucky too, the guy in Dewford pretty much wiped the floor with me. Though-" a goofy grin came on her face and she leant against my shoulder. "It was almost worth it just to see the gym leader." She sighed and I'm pretty sure her glasses fogged up. "I could just spread him on a cracker!"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm pretty sure he's about twenty-three years out of date."

She looked at me, grinned and then shook her head. "Say, did you hear about what happened in Dewford's forests?" she asked me, and a shiver raced up down my spine. "They found these two gardevoir dead, and their trainer shot in the face. Apparently they'd been capturing pokémon and people to turn into their gowns, and their latest victim escaped."

I froze, suddenly cold and unable to move. Everything played out before my eyes again, and I resisted the prime urges my body had to scream, cry or just to wet myself then and there.

Mia felt me stop and looked up to me, her eyes wide and alarmed. "Is everything alright?" she asked, concerned.

I gulped and forced the feelings back down again. "Fine," I lied, bare-faced. "I was just picturing myself in that situation." I shuddered, and didn't need to fake it. "Not something you really want to think about, is it?" I saw her nod and decided to change the subject to the first thing that came to mind. "So if you don't want me making a move on you, how comes you're walking around, attached to my arm?"

I winced. I decided I should have thought about what I was asking before my mouth began moving. Thankfully though, she just laughed and shook her head.

"You don't have all that many girls as friends, do you?" she asked, giggling slightly to herself. "Some of us will do this when we feel safe enough with a guy. It just makes everyone else think we're together, so we don't get hit on. Sort of a safety net really."

I nodded. It made sense. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little pang of hurt at her words. I was... safe. I never really had identified with the term before, and never truly understood how ego-crushing it could be, even if I was only interested in being friends with her.

Regardless, I pulled a face at her and then grinned. "So I'm 'safe', hm?"

She laughed and patted my chest. "Maybe if you were a little older, you'd be in with a chance. But you're younger than me; girls don't usually go for younger guys."

I grunted and nodded along with her explanation. I decided that if I was only safe, I could at least get her to help me how women's minds worked. If she was getting something out of our friendship, why couldn't I too?

"So why no younger guys?" I asked her, genuinely curious. And, I tried to tell myself, not the slightest bit jealous. My brain screamed at me that my racing heart was only to do with the fact that I couldn't help but feel she was a gardevoir, but I later realised that maybe there were other reasons too.

She shrugged. "Older guys are generally more mature. We know they're less likely to act childish, and are going to have a head on their shoulders more than a younger one."

"So if you had the choice between an older guy who was immature, and a younger one who was mature, who would you pick?" I asked.

Not that I was hoping for any specific answer.

"Older one," she answered quickly. When I stared at her, dumbfounded, she just laughed and patted my chest again. "Hey, I'm giving you an honest answer. You never said it had to make sense."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "I'm never going to understand women," I groaned, resisting the urge to bury my face in a hand. "You're all just too weird."

She laughed and nodded. "Well, that's just the fun about us. If it's all too much for you, you could always just become gay. I'm sure men are a lot less hassle."

I considered it for less than a moment and then shook my head with a laugh. "I don't think that's going to happen."

"Oh, I don't know," she said whimsically as she detached herself from me and skipped ahead a step or two. "I can see it happening. Though-" she placed a fist under her chin, "-I'm just stuck working out one thing; whether you'd be the pretty one, or the funny one."

I folded my arms and glared at her. "Either way, that's an insult."

"Ah, so that smart one," she said, peering at me over her glasses. "Though, that doesn't say much for the other one..." She grinned once more and looped her arm into mine again. "Come on then, let's get going to the gym. Once we're done there, we can figure out what we're doing next."

I nodded and followed her lead. Though I decided that maybe my initial impression of her was quite accurate; she was nothing short of a nutcase.

* * *

The gym itself was no different to either of those I had seen before, though this one was surrounded by various cranes and steel girders. It was near the shipyard of the town, and had a very... metallic feel to it. I supposed it fit in well with it being a steel pokémon gym. The whole town was a large industrial marvel, I realised, and it made sense.

I was thankful for Mia being there by my side. There were just too many people around, all rushing to get here, there and everywhere. Once or twice someone would pull a face at us, though would often quickly hurry on when Mia caught them giving us dirty looks and responded in her typical way. I couldn't help but grin whenever it happened, and marvelled at how she managed to think up such imaginative scenarios.

I knew one thing; she'd make a great horror film writer.

Or serial killer.

In the gym though, I found it unsurprising that the leader couldn't meet with us at such short notice. However, the receptionist working there proved to be endowed with plenty knowledge about steel pokémon – she said it was because each gym only employed people who knew about the pokémon they would be working with.

It brightened Mia considerably. She ended up clearing out the poor woman's brains for every bit of information she could think of, ranging from what sort of diet to give it, as well as the best ways to teach it attacks, as well as general ways to look after them. I listened in all the while, just in case I ever caught a steel type and needed to use what I'd learnt.

Though we were told we could use the gym's facilities to help train our pokémon, providing we paid a small fee. While I argued that we could have found a place to train for free, Mia convinced me to use the opportunity, if only because the nearest safe place to train within the city's limits was a good three hour walk away.

That won the arguement.

I saw along the way that there were a great number of different rooms, all specifically catered for different things; such as one having a pool, another room was blisteringly hot, and some were plain and covered in gravel. I considered it meant each one simulated a different environment, and they could train their pokémon to be further protected against water, fire or the like.

Since steel pokémon were heavily affected by magnetism and electrical waves, there were a number of rooms devoted to helping the pokémon train in such conditions. Most of the steel trainers trained in those rooms, supposedly, and it helped them and their pokémon overcome weaknesses that they suffered.

Myself and Mia ended up outside, in the gym's large grounds, which I'm convinced was actually a forest they were charging admission for. She smiled at me and reassured me it was worth it before she released her full team of four. I recognised her stantler from before, though it was the first time I'd seen any of her other members.

There was a large brown and red tortoise that came up to my knee, and it poked its head from its shell with a weary expression. It snorted out white steam at me and then collapsed to the floor, nonchalantly eating grass that burst into flame around it. Beside it was a small pokémon I would have thought was only a cactus, had I not seen it emerge from a poké ball. It was circular and dark green, and a number of pointed thorns covered its body and arms both. It didn't have a separate head that I could see, and it stared at me with beady red eyes, hidden in dark black grooves in its skin.

A torkoal and a cacnea. I considered that was how she had managed to win quite well in her gym battles so far, though couldn't fathom how Brawly had managed to defeat them both. I supposed he was stronger than I gave him credit for – after all, I defeated two of his pokémon with a then-disobedient, murderous Lacey.

Her last pokémon reminded me of a bug, though with a metallic exoskeleton. Numerous grooves and spikes adorned its body, and it had a pair of large, untrusting blue eyes that peered out from cracks beneath its steel hide. I realised it must have been an aron, given that it was the only member of her team I didn't recognise.

She crouched before them all and gave them all a little bit of attention before she craned her neck to me and smiled. "Kelvin's the torkoal, Saskia is the cacnea, and Wrex is the aron." She beamed up at me and then stared at my own poké balls. "So let yours out, and we can have them train for a little while."

I nodded and called out my own pokémon. It took a little bit to try and explain the situation, and eventually we managed to get them training with each other – and thankfully I stopped Lacey from murdering anything. Lacey and Charles ended up sparring – after I told Mia it wouldn't be wise to have her spar with any of the others. It ended up with the torkoal helping Xander to create mist – it was showing him how to do similar effects with its inherent white fog, whilst Loki chased after the cacnea, happily trying to attack it. Quite often he realised that his target could actually hit back, and he ended up scampering away before rounding back for another attack.

Myself and Mia ended up both trying to get her aron to be a bit more obedient. Or more, she tried getting it to attack me every time I started watching our pokémon spar.

It was war.

I decided to get my own back, and would get Xander to try and attack her at will. It meant that she would end up having her pokémon try to attack me, and eventually we ended up in one big brawl.

It was fun, and it ended up distracting me from everything, at least for a little while.

* * *

We spent the rest of most of the day just being tourists, going around Slateport and seeing what the town had to offer for us.

Eventually we ended up going to view the contest that Slateport was hosting. It cost us almost fifty poké each, but we both considered it was worth it.

It was something they described as a 'beauty contest', and I'd never honestly seen anything like it. I saw all different pokémon perform on stage, pulling off what they referred to as 'appeals'.

It was amazing.

I saw a blastoise create giant fountains of water from the cannons on its back, and then flash-froze it, mid-twist. It then leapt up and shattered the whole spiral in one brilliant move, creating a shower of little chunks of ice that resembled snowflakes. There was a vulpix that created swirling masses of purple flames, that it somehow managed to control, making them spin around it and then slowly fade out of view.

It was nothing short of breath-taking, and I often wish I'd managed to catch it on video. It showed me, for the first time, that beauty could be created from the harsh, brutal nature of pokémon. People were managing to use them for things other than just brutal, bear-baiting competitions, and it made me realise people could have evolved past using them for only brutal methods, if given enough time.

Which meant that I _had_ to succeed, if only to see such a thing happening.

I tensed and felt a little bit of me die on the inside. Mia seemed to notice something was up with me, and she grinned at me and pinched my arm as if to try and distract me. I smiled at her, and felt just a slight bit more alive when she smiled back.

I didn't truly understand what was happening, but I knew that somehow, I was happier when I was around her. Though despite it all, I still didn't feel safe from the demons. Or the ghost I knew had to still be alive.

Even though we spent the rest of the day going through mundane activities, like training our pokémon, and even just getting food, it was strangely enjoyable all the while. I put it down to simply being just because I hadn't spent any time around people within the few days prior, and it was making me embrace a love to being around people I didn't know I had.

The day went pretty quickly, and ended with Mia telling me off for making her spend another day in Slateport. She said she'd been planning to leave that day, though instead had just hung around with me. We booked a room to share in the pokémon centre, splitting the cost between us.

I also found out that like me, Mia had a habit of letting her pokémon out to sleep in the room with her.

"Maybe we should have considered this first," she decided, scratching at her cheek with a laugh. Lacey had stolen one of the two beds, whilst Xander nestled happily in the shower once more. Loki curled up next to Mia's torkoal and cacnea – all three of them happily nestled in the corner of the room, and her stantler knelt between the beds with the aron huddled up to it.

It also meant that there was only one single bed to spare, and just enough space for one of us to lie down on the floor.

I pulled a face and felt my stomach flip within my chest. "Well, you can take the bed then," I said, nodding towards it. "I'll take the floor."

"Don't be stupid," she abashed me, punching me on the arm. "There's enough space for us both on the bed."

I pulled a face again and felt my ears burn. Instead I told her to just take the bed and quickly hurried in the bathroom to get ready for the night. When I returned, she shook her head at me and used the bathroom herself, and then threatened to beat me to death with the toilet seat because I'd left it up.

I managed to pry the covers out from underneath Lacey, seeing as she didn't use them any way, and set up my own bed on the floor, cramped around the small groups of pokémon on the floor. When Mia came back in, she looked at me and laughed, and then climbed into the remaining bed.

"There's room you know," she offered, moving over slightly. "We've both agreed nothing's going to happen between us, so what's the harm in sharing a bed? We can top and tail you know? Or have you never just shared a bed before?"

Well, in honesty, I had. Many times I'd been forced to sleep up close to various members of my troops, all to try and seek warmth, or even just to stay protected against whatever lay in wait for us in the dark.

But I didn't want to share one whilst my brain was still convinced every touch on my skin was from the demons.

Mia was persistent in her cause of not wanting me to sleep on the floor, so eventually I grumbled my acceptance and crawled into bed beside her. She pulled a face at the number of bruises covering my chest, though said nothing about it as she gave me enough room to get into the bed next to her. When I was settled in, she crawled up and buried her head on my shoulder, deciding it was more comfortable to sleep on than the pillow.

The reaction was instant, and it took every ounce of will in me not to scream and leap away from her in that moment, afraid she'd try to rape me or skin me alive. I barely contained a shudder at the thought of it all and wondered if I'd ever be able to have normal thoughts again.

She must have noticed I was tense, because she laughed at something before she said, "You really don't have to worry, you know? I told you you're safe. I'm not going to leap on you during the night."

I laughed nervously at her words. "What happened to going top and tail?" I wondered aloud, and winced at the way she prodded one of my bruises.

"I'm not sleeping with my face near your feet," she told me, flat toned. "Feet are gross, and if they touched me during the night, I'd cut them off. Do you really want to wake up without any feet?"

Somewhat scarily, I could see her chopping them off during the night. "Not particularly," I admitted, and heard her grunt in amusement. Though it didn't stop my brain screaming at me to run away from the contact, or to just kill the threat. "Though it doesn't explain why you're using my shoulder as a pillow."

She grunted somewhat sleepily. "Your big head is taking up the entire pillow. Besides, I've slept like this with people before. They've never complained. There's no harm in it if you're friends."

I murmured something akin to acceptance, realising I wasn't going to win the argument. Instead I felt my heart thud further in my chest when she wrapped one of my arms around her. I was like putty in her hands, and couldn't find any sort of will within me to argue against her. I had to keep my body relaxed, because otherwise I was afraid she'd do something which would make me react without conscious decision. I didn't want to end up killing her like I did the starly Jennifer gave me, if only because she was one of only two friends I had in the world.

I wondered if she could hear the way my heart thudded against my rib cage when she pressed her head slightly onto my chest. She grunted something, and with her being so close, I felt my hormones take control of my body. As she bid me goodnight, I had to fight the internal war against my hormones, and quickly found that it was one I was losing. I cursed each and every one of them, and hoped that she didn't move around a lot during the night or brush against _me._

I sighed and gave up my fight. It was obvious I wasn't going to win. Instead I just decided to try and sleep for the night and closed my eyes...

...only to see the demon in my mind again.

I leapt from my skin, and somehow didn't manage to knock Mia from her sleep. I was panting quickly, and my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest. Not even when I had Mia by my side could I forget the demons that haunted my dreams.

I felt a tear slip from an eye as I remembered it all once more and swallowed, forcing the feelings back down once more. If nothing else, remembering the demons helped me win the war against my hormones.

Every cloud was meant to have a silver lining. In my life, it just seemed like every bit of good was accompanied by five of bad.

And yet again, my mind began to scream the one question I hadn't been able to answer since I'd got to the new world:

_Why me?_


	22. Slateport

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Slateport

* * *

**

_You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. _~ Abraham Lincoln.

**-O-O-O-**

"_Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and gambling. Sex, swearing, laughing and crying. People don't seem to understand that almost everything can become an addiction. People can become addicted to trying to be happy just as easily as some can become dependent on alcohol. It's just that society sees some as normal, whereas others are frowned upon._

_If you want to have sex as often as possible, then you're not treated as an addict. It's only when you cross an invisible line that society's set out for you do you get classed as a nymphomaniac. If you like to drink, you're an alcoholic if you drink before or after certain times, or if you drink over a certain amount in a certain amount of time._

_Society deems some worse than others. What society doesn't seem to realise is that anyone, anywhere, can become addicted to anything._

_And when there's no self-help group available for you, why should you ever bother trying to overcome it?"_

- Sean Sinclair, public activist for more government funding towards addiction-help groups. _(March 17__th__, 3001)_

**-O-O-O-**

The next morning I awoke to find that Mia had already left. I was amazed that I had managed to sleep through her crawling out of the bed next to me, and leaving the room, though she left a note saying that I took so long to get to sleep, eventually she just had Charles hypnotise me into sleeping.

I didn't know whether to believe it or not. I couldn't remember it happening, though wouldn't have put it past her to do something like that.

Her note said that she was heading on towards Mauville, and then across to Verdanturf before doubling back and heading up to Lavaridge. Apparently Verdanturf didn't have a gym or anything of the like, but supposedly she had cousins there that she was going to visit.

Though I discovered that while I was out, she'd taken the time to scrawl over my chest with bright red lipstick. I couldn't make out any of it, though I could tell she'd lined me with insults.

Nothing towards that was mentioned on her note, though she'd hastily added a line at the very end: _'Oh, and I found the earrings I've been looking for sticking out of your bag. Since you stole them, I took the liberty of stealing your shoelaces.'_

I blinked at the note and groaned, falling back onto the bed once more. A quick glance at my shoes told me that she had, indeed, stolen my shoelaces out of the boots themselves, which meant that I would have to wander around with loose, flapping boots until I found somewhere that sold replacements.

After that, I made the conscious decision to always have at least three sets of spare laces in my bag.

I groaned and pushed myself out of bed, my thoughts drifting back to how Mia had supposedly used her stantler to put me to sleep.. Just how could a pokémon make you sleep so deeply? It didn't make sense, though I saw Loki quite happily laughing at me, so assumed that he'd woken before me and taken great pleasure in my involuntary tattoos.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I grunted, rolling my eyes when even Lacey tried not to snigger at me. I made the mental note to get them back as once again I had to shower around a still-sleeping Xander.

Once I was dressed and I'd got everyone downstairs to get some food – and also bought a set of shoelaces of a random trainer, who happened to give me weird looks when I explained why I needed them. I could only gather from their reaction that they'd never encountered anyone with the twisted sense of humour Mia possessed. I didn't doubt that, and wondered if I was the only one who had ever encountered someone as strange as her.

As I sat down to eat, I ended up with a mental debate about what to do with the day. Mia had told me that the gym used steel pokémon, and I was unlikely to win in there, but I felt I had to try it, regardless. I didn't know when I would next be in Slateport, and had to take the chance. If I had to influence anyone to try and change something, I doubted they'd listen to me if I only had two badges.

I made my way to the gym quickly and managed to get myself a battle in four day's time. While I was a bit pissed at having to wait a whole four days for my battle, the woman at the desk explained to me that because Slateport was such a large industrial area and had many ties to close, neighbouring towns, there would often be large influxes of trainers coming into town, wanting battles. It didn't help that ships ran every day from Slateport to Lilycove, as well as to Dewford, which brought even more trainers in. She told me I was lucky I'd come at such a time, as supposedly there would often be up to two month's waiting time when the new trainers were all released into the world.

I was confused by that, so she explained to me that at the beginning of summer each year, every school would have a graduation ceremony, of sorts, where they would have every ten year old that wanted to go around travelling from their school, and they would give them each a pokémon to journey with. Supposedly they were quite often common, local pokémon, and they would always have a choice of one of three, though the richer schools would often have rarer pokémon, or even imported ones to choose from.

I was amazed by that. Even more so when she told me that it was all based on a matter of paperwork and grades obtained in the classroom. Supposedly the best studying students, as well as those that were attentive enough during school hours would get to go and travel, whilst those that were too easily distracted, or those that weren't smart enough to understand basics of pokémon would be disallowed.

They were releasing ten year old kids into the wilds, based on how well they could do math! I was flabbergasted by that, though the woman told me there were always practical elements to school lessons, and the kids would always know the basics of what they needed when they went travelling.

I cursed and realised it was no wonder that so many kids died each year when they went travelling. Nearby there was a mother with her ten year old son, supposedly travelling with him to his first gym in order to make sure he was safe and practical enough to survive on his own. She heard it all, and I saw that she agreed with everything I said, and then phoned up someone – possibly the school her son was from – and started laying into them over the phone.

I slunk away after that. I think I'd managed to cause too much of a controversy in there, and felt that maybe if I didn't go back until the day of my gym battle, it would all have blown over.

Instead I quickly headed down to the beach, after hearing from a few people that some trainers went down there to battle amongst each other. I needed some money, and knew that if I fought a few, I should be able to come away with more money than I lost.

It also provided a lot of opportunities for my pokémon to cause havoc. Loki decided it was the most fun thing ever to scamper around the beach and destroy people's sandcastles – which quite often ended up with them challenging me to a battle for recompense. Most of the time it was only new trainers, though sometimes there were twelve year olds that had been travelling for two years, and they almost always wiped the floor with me.

That wasn't exactly an ego boost.

After one I just buried myself in the sand – I was considering whether to do it literally or not – when I noticed that Lacey had snuck off somewhere. Initially I paid it no mind, merely thinking that she had decided to find somewhere a bit more peaceful to sit in. Xander and Loki didn't seem too eager to tell me anything, so I just assumed that she wasn't doing anything bad.

She returned an hour later, a smug grin on her face. I didn't know what to think, so instead I went for the blunt answer of asking, "What have you been up to?"

She grunted something unintelligible, and gave me what I only could assume was an innocent grin. It wasn't exactly reassuring in the slightest.

So when a bunch of kids started screaming, I thought the worst.

"Who have you killed?" I hissed, snatching her arm and pulling her down to the sand. She croaked something and gave me a sharp look, and I thought that maybe this time, she hadn't actually killed anyone. Maybe a big kingler had chased after a few kids that got too close to its baby krabby or something.

Though I found out quickly that they were screaming about a little pond they all liked to play in. Something had happened in there, and now there were dead krabby, finneon and magikarp all floating along the surface of the water.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what she'd been up to.

"_Lacey!"_ I hissed, and had to restrain myself from outright hitting her. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing? You can't just go around poisoning things! People tend to notice when you do things in public view!"

She grunted something again and folded her arms. She reminded me of a grumpy teenager, rebelling against a parent's rule.

"There's consequences to what you do!" I growled at her. "You think people never looked for the statues in your little basement of horrors? I don't know what you think of humans, but we're not stupid enough to forget someone's died, or not notice there's a pool full of dead pokémon!"

She grunted something again and gave me a sharp look, followed by her sitting out on the sand, watching with sadistic glee as people ran around, trying to get their kids away from the pool water. I only hoped that whatever she had placed in it wasn't poisonous to humans, otherwise I'd have a child-murderer in plain sight.

I didn't know what to do with her. I hoped that my little argument with her might have put her off killing things for a little while.

So I quite rightly almost had a heart attack when someone turned up dead on the beach the next day. Thankfully it turned out to be a swimmer that had pissed off a tentacruel, and had been stung to death by the creature.

I was at my wit's end with her. I couldn't keep her from murdering things, because it just seemed like she was addicted to the thrill of it. At least Loki was young and didn't understand killing was a bad thing. Lacey just liked doing it, and couldn't seem to stop herself. I doubted there was a 'Murderers Anonymous' group anywhere in Hoenn, so I couldn't exactly expect her to get over her addiction that easily.

Yet, I couldn't just let her murder everything in sight, as she'd likely kill someone or a trainer's pokémon. Eventually I told her that once a week, she could sneak off into the wilds and satisfy her murderous urges – as long as it was only wild pokémon.

Though admittedly, I did start to think of other ways she could satisfy such urges. I figured people wouldn't miss guilty criminals that had somehow found a loophole to escape, or anyone similar. As long as people didn't miss them, I considered that maybe it was okay for her to kill them.

Though I didn't say anything to her about it. I was still trying to stop her from just murdering everyone on the beach that came too close to us. Instead I just used her in a few battles against stronger trainers, and although she got beaten quite often, when she did win, it seemed to satisfy her.

I also ended up earning more money than I lost, so it wasn't all bad.

Even Xander started to become a mischief-maker. Whenever we'd see someone fishing, he'd dive into the sea and start tugging on their fishing lines. The fishermen would start to celebrate and reel in their big prize, only to find out that he'd tangled their line up with another fisher's line, or just to have swam off and left them catching nothing.

It proved to me that he was becoming a lombre – I knew that they were jokesters and would happily play pranks on people, just for their own amusement. I started to dread the day he would evolve, realising I could end up with Loki and Loki-Mark Two on my hands.

_That_ was a scary thought.

* * *

The four days until the gym battle passed extremely quickly, and it seemed like no time had actually passed when I found myself at the gym again, this time waiting for my own battle. I hadn't been introduced to the leader, even after waiting around in the gym for a while, and instead was shown around by one of the trainers that worked at the gym.

When I was finally shown to the battlefield, I found that despite all how busy the gym seemed to be, it was surprisingly devoid of life. The only person in there apart from me and the man showing me round was a woman stood in the centre of the battlefield, her arms folded and face pulled into a weary expression.

When I finally reached her, she stuck her hand out between us and sighed tiredly. "Name's Veronique," she said. "I'm the leader of the Slateport gym."

As I introduced myself I took a moment to see what she looked like. She wore faded blue jeans and a denim jacket over a white top, and had a small golden necklace with a 'V' charm resting against her chest. She had brown hair cut into a bob with a blue streak across her fringe, and blue-grey eyes that showed just how tired she actually was.

She yawned and tried to cover it up, though failed badly. "Sorry," she apologised quickly. "We're getting into the busy season at the moment – from spring to the end of summer, it's pretty much battle, battle, battle." She pulled a face and rubbed at her eyelids. "Trainers just don't seem to understand how tiring it is to be conducting battles all day long, and then using the time between to do paperwork and look after my pokémon." She sighed once more and shrugged. "Even my days off are as busy as work days. Anyway-" she shook her head and blinked rapidly. "I didn't mean to bore you with all that. You're here for the Furnace Badge, not to listen to the woes of a gym leader." She waved a hand and pointed to a podium. "Make way to your podium whenever you're ready, and we'll start this match."

I nodded and made way onto mine quickly. Veronique offered me a small smile before she climbed onto her, and then activated them enough to boost us into the air, like every gym before us. I was impressed by how quickly I had become accustomed to such a thing, and wondered just how much else I'd become used to.

"Okay!" Veronique called out, pushing the tiredness from her voice. "You're challenging me today for Slateport City's Furnace Badge." She stopped a moment and yawned again, apologising profusely afterwards. "I shall be using three pokémon, you may use as many as you have on you. League battle rules apply. Good luck," she said to me before she tossed a poké ball out and onto the field.

From it poured forth the form of a strange creature with yellow and grey skin covered in small bumps and grooves. It had strong looking black thighs that ended in large clawed feet, and it had large, black clawed hands. It had large, red eyes set in the middle of its head, and a few small horns topped its head, though another set formed a large set of jaws that were as big as the creature itself, and moved like a second mouth.

I knew it was a mawile, a creature to be feared. I'd only ever heard of them from horror stories people would tell – saying that the creature would lure you in with deception, appearing to be weak, and then its large jaws would clamp down on the unsuspecting prey. Looking at the creature, I didn't doubt any of it.

I grimaced as I mulled over my pokémon. None of them would be good against the creature, though I had to take the chance. I got the feeling I should have listened to Mia's advice, but instead decided to ignore that train of thought and focus on the battle.

I opted to call out Xander, and watched as he took his place readily on the battlefield, already watching his foe in anticipation.

"Keep your distance!" I urged him. "Blast it!"

He croaked and shot a jet of water powerful enough to stagger the creature back a step or two, but Veronique didn't seem fazed in the slightest. In fact, she seemed to be smirking at something I wasn't included in.

"Entice it in!" she commanded.

I blinked, wondering what the hell she meant. The mawile's jaw-horns let out a strange screeching noise that sounded like metal scraping together, and suddenly something distance caused twinges with my nose.

It smelt so alluring, and I was reminded briefly of freshly baked apple pies. The smell surrounded me entirely, and I felt myself becoming unfocused and dazed, dimly aware of the string of drool starting to slip from my mouth. I only snapped out of it when I saw Xander waddling up to the mawile, looking as dazed as I no doubt did, and shrieked as its jaws clamped down around its sides.

I saw blood trickle down his legs and cursed myself. "Get out of there!" I yelled at him. "Make bubbles in its jaw!"

He croaked once more and took a deep breath, spitting out a steady stream of small, tiny bubbles that hammered at the inside of the large jaws, exploding with fierce force beneath. The mawile shrieked and suddenly the fangs on its jaws became coated in static just before it clamped down hard and then threw Xander across the field. I called out after him, worried, and felt my heart relax just a fraction when he struggled back to his feet again.

I glanced between him and the mawile once and knew he wouldn't last long against another assault like that. I decided to try out his new technique, and hoped that our drills had been enough for him to gain enough control over it.

"Cloak yourself!" I barked, and took slight pleasure in the way I saw Veronique's eyes widen a fraction.

Instantly thick, white mist poured from Xander's mouth. With every breath he took it increased more and more in volume, until he was cloaked in a good three-foot radius of the fog. I began to chew on my lip, knowing it wasn't a great hiding place – it was obvious he was within the three foot range, though it was more protection than he had before.

Curiously, I found that I could still see him perfectly. I began to panic, thinking that it hadn't worked well, though saw quickly that Veronique looked alarmed and unable to see him. I guessed it had to be something to do with my own adaptation, and hid a smirk at the thought.

My smirk quickly died, however, when the gym leader grew a smirk of her own. "Entice it again!"

I cursed aloud and pinched my nose as the smell began drifting around us all once more. I heard Xander croak, and called out to him, though it was all useless. He simply waddled forwards again, happily becoming lured into the honey trap once more.

"You know what to do," I heard Veronique say. "Give it your best poisonous bite!"

I felt alarm flare through me. _Poison?_ I panicked, knowing it would harm him. While I knew that he would be able to recover after a little while as long as it wasn't lethal. But I didn't know what sort of games the woman would play with my pokémon.

I barely caught a glimpse of something purple dripping from the mawile's jaws before they snapped shut around Xander, and he let out a shriek I'd never heard from him before. The mawile shook him in its grip a moment before it threw him across the battlefield, and he bounced along the floor, kicking up dirt in his wake.

I called out to him, and saw that he just managed to get to his feet, looking incredibly pale and shaking all the while. He coughed once, and then threw up in a little corner of the field. I pulled a face and recalled him as quickly as I could, praying that I could get him into a pokémon centre in time.

For a little bit, I realised that just maybe, I shouldn't have been progressing the way I was. I was killing pokémon and people without remorse, and yet I'd never thought about what would happen if and when someone discovered their pokémon or relative was missing.

The thought of Xander becoming ill made my blood run cold. Let alone if he had actually managed to die. If it hurt me so much, I realised that maybe I shouldn't have been doing it to other people.

But everyone I'd killed had been with a reason. Aaron was going around mass-murdering people, and the champion had been letting his demons go around killing people. There had been reasons for both of them.

And in my mind, that made it right.

I wasn't immune to feelings, and knew it. But I knew that despite it all, I had to carry on forwards. When I was brought up, I had been told many times to leave behind compassion behind.

Yet I found it so hard to follow those ideals with my pokémon. They were my family, and I knew I could go to any lengths to protect them.

I had just to make sure we become stronger so that we'd never been in such a situation again.

I made my next move and called out Lacey. She appeared and hissed something at the mawile, pulling errand strands of thick white hair from her face.

Her appearance seemed to throw off Veronique, and she seemed to reconsider her battle approach. I knew what she was thinking then; that I was either getting her into a false sense of security with a weaker pokémon, and then unleashing something that was almost into its third stage.

If she was thinking that, she was wrong. The simple fact was that Xander had the best advantage against her pokémon, and added to that; I just trusted Xander more than Lacey. Although she was being obedient now, and had helped me out continually, there was still a small part of me that was worried it was nothing more than a large, planned out ruse.

Veronique didn't seem to want to waste a moment. "Burn it!" she cried, and I did a double take at her words.

A low, guttural sound came from the mawile, and suddenly it whipped round its body to spit out a stream of red-hot flames at Lacey. I balked in the face of them, though Lacey had enough smarts about her to leap out of the way of the burning assault. It made me breathe a sigh of relief and realise she was slightly more used to fighting then I thought. It seemed that with pokémon, they had an instinctive urge to fight, rather than to flee. Unless they had been trained otherwise, they always seemed to try and take attacks head-on, rather than avoiding them. The only exceptions were ghosts, though they would often just phase from the physical plane for malevolent means, rather than to simply avoid an attack.

"Get in there!" I barked at her. "Get in close and kick it low!"

Lacey grunted something in reply, though thankfully followed my commands. I saw her sneer at the mawile before she faded from view, and there was a small gust of wind before she appeared behind it and punched it in the side of the head. The mawile snapped round on her, and she grinned and swept a foot under the creature's legs, successfully making it fall flat on its face.

I watched it and quickly tried to figure out its weak points. I knew that the jaws were extremely strong, and they were linked to the mawile's actual jaw bones and muscles, which let it control the large horns behind it. Its neck muscles had to be strong to support the large steel jaws, and its head would likewise have to be strong.

It had to be its chest or its limbs. I considered it the best I could and got Lacey to go and attack its arms. I figured they would be the weakest point, though realised I was deathly wrong as ice began to cloud around them both. I shrieked at Lacey to get away, and she managed to leap backwards just before the mawile's hands crystallised with solid ice and it punched where my pokémon just was.

Veronique looked at me in curiosity. "You reacted fast to that ice punch," she stated, leaning over the railings on her podium. "Before it had even managed to form the attack well enough to be noticed."

I chuckled nervously and pulled the hair that was sticking to my face away. I didn't honestly know why it was, but I assumed that since I saw Xander within the mist, and she couldn't, it had to be something to do with my adaptation.

"Just paranoia," I told her, and watched as Lacey leapt away from another attack and kicked the mawile in the face. I saw it recoil, and realised that maybe its face had to be its weakest point. "Kick it over again, and get its face!"

There was another metallic shriek as the mawile fell over, and it cried out in pain as Lacey leapt on it and began to punch it in the face. I smelt fire just before I heard Lacey herself shriek, falling backwards and clutching her chest in pain. Small clumps of her white hair were still aflame, and some had been burnt black, whilst an ugly looking blister was already forming on her chest.

I winced. That had to hurt.

Lacey hissed darkly and vanished once more from view. There was a deathly chill to the air as she appeared behind the mawile and jumped down on its jaws. The mawile shrieked as the large horn-jaws were pressed down against the floor, and Lacey began to jump up and down on them like it was a spring-loaded bed. She leapt away from the creature as more fire burst from its mouth, and quickly punched it in the face once more. The mawile fell back in pain, clutching its actual mouth before Lacey leapt up and kicked it with both feet in the chest.

The mawile groaned from its place on the floor, clutching at its chest and struggling to breathe. It was obviously winded, and seemed to be struggling to do anything except try and breathe.

Lacey pulled herself back to her feet, and after rubbing the large sore on her chest with a wince, she walked up to the mawile and kicked it in the chest, making it roll across the ground and kick up a small amount of dust.

Veronique sighed and recalled her pokémon back into its ball. She began to say something, but I didn't catch any of it.

All of a sudden, I felt incredibly hot. It was like someone had turned on all the heating in the building, and I felt sweat pour out of me completely. It raced down my forehead and dripped from the end of my nose, and I began to pull at my shirt, fanning me as best I could.

Then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. It was like someone had hit a 'cool' switch, and all the heat vanished again. I wiped my face on my jacket, and caught sight of the pokémon Veronique had just released.

It looked like a long, bulky lizard with black skin. A number of spikes ran down its back, each covered with a small amount of grey armour, and a large additional set of grey armour covered its face, with a few small block holes running down the middle of its face. It had large black claws on each of its four legs, and there was a large spike protruding out of the side of each of its knees.

I had no idea what it was, and pulled out my pokédex to identify it as quickly as I could. However, as I did, Veronique got her pokémon to race at Lacey, and it leapt upon her as a flurry of teeth and claws. Lacey shrieked and began to claw at the creature's underside, and the battlefield became covered in small chunks of black and brown flesh, as well as plenty of blood.

"Do you really think I'm going to let you use that?" Veronique shouted out to me, her eyes shifting between my face and my pokédex. "If you're out in the wild, you're not going to get the chance to scan through that with a wild pokémon trying to eat you and your team. Think, learn and adapt. Try an attack, see how it works, and learn from that." She flicked her head, letting her hair fall away from her eyes. "Every pokémon that evolves from another always retains some semblance of what they evolved from. So think about it, and try to realise what it might be related to." Her pokémon reared up and smashed its forelegs into the ground, and suddenly the entire arena began to shake. Lacey cried out and lost her balance long enough for the creature to race into her once more, knocking her back a good distance across the field.

"Think on your feet," the leader told me. "That's one of the key things you need to remember when you're a trainer. You can have a different strategy for every different situation, yet if they fail, what will you do? Think. Learn. Adapt."

Her pokémon roared and smashed its head into Lacey's skull, and she fell backwards, shrieking and clutching her nose. Blood was pouring freely from her face, and I knew with her nose in pain she wouldn't be able to do much. The steel pokémon spun around on the spot and kicked her again in the face with its hind legs, and knocked her completely to the floor, groaning slightly and obviously dazed.

I grimaced as I clutched her poké ball in my hand. Two of my pokémon down, and only Loki remaining. Lacey was the strongest one I had, and I knew Loki had to defeat two pokémon he wouldn't be able to harm much.

I recalled Lacey and placed her poké ball back onto my bandolier, and went to grab Loki's. However I felt completely hot again once more, and dropped to the floor with the sheer heat of it all. My heat began to swim and sweat pumped out of my every pore, soaking my face and shirt both. I groaned and tried to pry myself back to my feet again, and saw that I was trembling again, and saw that my skin was remarkably paler than it had been before.

Then just like before, the heat vanished all at once. I leant over the railings, panting for breath, and could see the sweat dripping from my head and down onto the floor. I felt so incredibly weak, and my knees wouldn't stop shaking underneath me.

I heard Veronique whisper something into a headset I never saw her wearing, and pulled my head up enough to see her glance at me in concern. "Are you okay?" she asked me, obviously worried. "You don't look so well."

I panted and pushed myself into a standing position, swaying slightly with a light head. I felt like I had sunstroke, minus the cold-shivers that came with it. "I'm fine," I grunted, and plucked Loki's poké ball from my bandolier.

"Okay," Veronique said, uncertainly. "But once this is over, you're to go straight to the hospital and check into A-and-E, okay?"

It was more of a demand than a question, though I nodded my head in agreement regardless. I wondered myself what it could be, and started to think that maybe I'd managed to catch something along the way. Maybe Mia had the flu or something, and I'd caught it and was going through the symptoms of it.

Remarkably, everything seemed fine with me once I called Loki out onto the battlefield. He bounced around and cackled at the familiar settings, knowing that he would be in for another fight soon.

Sooner than he thought as the steel beast charged him. He shrieked and leapt into a shadow as quickly as he could, making the beast storm past him and barely manage to stop before the boundaries of the pitch. It turned around and roared just as Loki appeared from the shadows and punched it underneath the jaw.

It reared back onto its hind legs and stomped the ground again, and this time Loki fell flat on his face, underneath the creature. It roared once more and tried to snap its jaws around him, and I heard him shriek underneath it and try to claw it in its mouth.

"Confuse it!" I yelled at him, and suddenly, the world was spinning again.

It was so _hot_ once more! I leant forwards on the railings and felt like the world was jumping around me, spinning wildly and making me feel so terribly sick.

It shouldn't have been so hot! Everything on the battlefield became a distant blur, and I felt so desperately overheated and dried out.

Then suddenly, it was cold again.

There was a freezing shudder that raced down my spine, and then my whole body felt like it was boiling up again.

And in the distance, I heard horrific shrieking that haunted my nightmares.

I leapt up, panicking wildly, and began to search around every corner of the room. I barely caught sight of the pokémon battling beneath us, and Veronique look at me in concern as I looked around, trying in vain to find the source of the noise.

It was getting closer. Forever closer.

The screams were becoming louder and louder, and they sounded like they were coming from _inside_ the gym!

I shuddered and rubbed my arms, even though I was boiling over again. The screams were louder. So much louder. I could feel them like they were coming from the area behind me. Even when I looked around, I couldn't see anything. They were invisible screams, all made to haunt me!

I had to be going crazy. I just had to. No one seemed to notice the screams. It had to have been whatever was making me ill.

Then the lights began flickering on and off again.

Veronique gasped loudly, and I _knew_ I wasn't going crazy. The lights continued to flicker, on off, on off, and I began to see something in the dark.

_On, off._

It was getting closer.

_On, off._

The screams got louder still.

_On, off._

It took shape of a small, muscular body.

_On, off_.

The screams were coming from right in front of me.

_On, off._

The headless makuhita was stood before me, screaming its deathly screams without a head to voice them.

I screamed and backed against the railings even as it lumbered towards me. It screamed again and again, waddling towards me with deadly intent. Blood poured from its open neck, showering the podium and myself with thick, stinking black blood.

The lights flickered again and again, and the darkness poured from and coagulated around the impossible sight.

"No," I whispered, pressing myself further against the railings in fear. It couldn't be real. It just couldn't! The makuhita was dead. It was _dead!_ It shouldn't have been there, haunting me!

And yet it was.

It screamed its deathly scream again, and once more I felt myself break out in a hot flush again.

It advanced, and I screamed again. There was a deathly sound more like a haunting wail than a scream, and it leapt at me.

I jumped backwards, and completely forgot about the railing behind me. I heard someone scream as my legs gave way beneath me, and felt nothing but air supporting my body.

Then there was a large impact of pain all through my back, and then, nothing.


	23. The Decisions We Make

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Decisions We Make

* * *

**

_We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us. _~ Aristotle

**-O-O-O-**

"_It was decided nearly fifty years ago to increase the amount of pokémon gyms within a country from eight to twenty. Although this caused much uproar, the eight badge rule for entering a championship still remained._

_Though many people ask; why did it need to be changed?_

_The answer is quite obvious, if one stops to think about it. Pokémon trainers, by some strange twist in fate's plan, have control over beasts that can breathe fire and freeze whole bodies of water. A trainer could get eight badges easily with certain pokémon who know only a selection of one-hit-kill moves, more famously known as the likes of guillotine and sheer cold. By obtaining eight badges in such a way, it does not show that the trainer has managed to look after and actually train their pokémon well, but rather, they have won through luck every time._

_Now with a limit of twenty badges, trainers can be evaluated better in their skills. Each gym leader has a different approach dependent on how many other badges their opponent has. Some will let their pokémon rampage, rather like a wild, angry pokémon would, and some will play with tricks, which most sinister feral pokémon would also do._

_By increasing the amount of badges to twenty, trainers are exposed to a greater number of situations they are likely to experience in the wild, and thus should be able to cope with such situations, would they ever occur._

_For every one who still doesn't believe in it; just look at the percentages. With the eight-badge rule, thirteen-point-nine percent of trainers died each year on their journeys. Now, with the twenty badge rule, it's dropped down to five-point-three percent._

_Trainers everywhere may have complained once, but the figures speak volumes more. It might not be any safer for children to go out on their journeys, but now they're a lot more prepared for them, and a damn sight more likely to come back home alive._

_And at the end of the day, that's all we ever really want our children to accomplish on these Rites of Passages."_

- Bertha Shale, 25th Sinnoh League Champion, Sinnoh Elite Four Member 2990 – 3011. _(March 18__th__, 3005)_

**-O-O-O-**

When the world came back to me sometime later, I was greeted with the sounds of mechanical beeping and a large mask attached to my face.

I blinked wearily, wondering just what was going on for a good moment as my brain tried to adjust to everything that had happened. I only managed to realise I was in a hospital when a nurse came along to check on me, making a quick evaluation of my condition before she called in a doctor to double-check since I was awake.

Once that was all over and they decided that I didn't have a concussion or any broken ribs – just one huge bruise on my back – I managed to whisper a bleary, "What happened?"

The doctor – an easily forgettable man with receding black hair, some wrinkles and brown eyes - grunted no actual answer as he pressed two fingers to my neck and checked my pulse against his watch. Once he was happy with my heartbeat, he grunted again and looked at me. "The gym leader, Veronique checked you in."

The words made no sense to me for a moment. Why would there be a gym leader around? For that matter, what _was_ a gym leader? I struggled to answer those questions as he continued speaking.

"Apparently you had a freak-out of some sort whilst in your battle," he told me, pulling a face at the implications of it all. "We couldn't run that many tests on you whilst you were out, though now you're awake, we can ask you a few questions." He looked at me a moment, clicked his tongue and then picked up a clipboard from the bedside table. "Is there any history of mental illness in your family?"

I squinted at him, wondering why he was asking me this. For all I knew, I was still in camp, and it was known that I had no family of my own. I wondered why he was asking me these questions, and slowly everything started to come back to me. I'd been attacked by some demonic version of my dead makuhita. It couldn't be true, yet some part of me told me it was deathly real.

I blinked at the doctor a moment, forgetting his question. "What... what happened to my pokémon?" I grunted.

He spared me a glance over his clipboard. "They were checked into the pokémon centre nearby just after you were admitted into this hospital. If you like, I can have one of the interns collect them for you."

I grunted with a nod. On some level, I didn't feel safe without them. No doubt they would have taken my weapons when I was unconscious, which left me completely defenceless, and cloaked only in a hospital gown. At least if I had my pokémon with me, I would have some form of weapon against anything or anyone that came after me.

"I'll send someone to collect them just after you answer a few questions that might help us discern what happened," he said, eyes glancing back down to his clipboard. "Now, is there any history of mental illness in your family?"

I looked at him a moment, and despite everything, couldn't help but grow a small smile. "I don't have a clue," I admitted, tapping the strange clip on the end of my finger against my leg. "They're all dead."

"I see," he whispered, and made a few notes on his papers. "Do you know anything about the history of your family?"

No doubt I was making his job harder. Instead of being able to narrow my causes down, I left him to try and cover every possible angle. Whilst I knew the cause of everything was the ghostly makuhita, I felt that I had to at least be honest with him. "They might have been ice specialists," I offered, though noted by the crease in his forehead that it wasn't as helpful as I first thought it would be.

After a few more questions with equally useless answers, the doctor finally left, promising to get an intern to collect my pokémon and return them to me – if they were ready – within the next hour or so.

Until then, I had nothing to do but wait.

* * *

It had been almost two hours by the time someone actually came to visit me again. In that time I'd realised I was in a large ward, with only thin blue curtains offering me some form of privacy from everyone else. Apparently I had been unconscious for two days, which should have meant that my pokémon were more than healed.

If not, I wondered just how badly they were injured in that battle.

Surprisingly though, my first visitor was Veronique herself, and she brought with her a tall blonde woman with hair that floated around her shoulders. She had a white top underneath a dark pink short jacket, and an equal coloured short skirt.

Though more importantly than that, she also brought back my pokémon.

I thanked her endlessly as she handed me back all of their poké balls, and placed them next to me on the bed, feeling so much more confident with them by my side.

"It's good to see you're well again," Veronique said to me as she pulled up a chair and sat nearby. "Allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine – her name is Melissa." I smiled at her and shook her hand, feeling somewhat undressed and tried to pull the covers of my bed around me. "She's the gym leader of Lilycove City – they use ghost pokémon."

I blinked, nodded and then smiled at Melissa. "So you're ghost attuned then."

If they were surprised, they didn't show it. Instead Melissa smiled and swept her fringe from her face, focusing her blue eyes on me. "I'm impressed you know such a thing," she said, her voice holding wisdom and confidence. "Though explanations towards that are not why I am here." She crossed one leg over the other and placed her hands on her lap. "Veronique has explained to me the events that lead up to your... episode. It was actually quite a good thing I had a day off today, so I was able to use my pokémon to teleport me here, seeing as this seems to be such an extreme case. The lights flickered on and off, and she said you looked like you'd seen something no one else could. Does this sound familiar?"

I nodded, impressed that she knew that. "There's a bit more than that." I took a breath and explained everything that happened with the shedinja to them both, leaving out the fact I figured it was Aaron's pokémon hunting after me.

After it all, Veronique said nothing, merely sitting there with bright, wide eyes. Melissa on the other hand, seemed to be considering it all as she bit her bottom lip.

"It sounds like somehow you have managed to offend a shedinja," she theorised, cupping her chin with a thumb and her forefinger. "Shedinja are a strange pokémon that are born from the angry soul of a vengeful ghost. If the host body is destroyed, then the ghost is thrown back out of the physical plane once more. However, if there is another dead body for it to inhabit, it shall swap over to the new host, and take over that too.

"You see, the abilities of a shedinja that prevent it from harm from attacks are the innate abilities of the ghost inhabiting it," she explained. "If it inhabits a new host, the abilities are transferred to that. If, like you claim, it inhabits a makuhita, then now that shall share the properties of a fighting pokémon, as well as a ghost."

I stared at her, worry building within my throat already. "Then is there something I can do to stop it?"

Veronique was the one to answer me this time. "Not many things can destroy ghosts. At first, I thought you were faking it all because you were losing, to be honest. Though your sableye started acting strange whilst you were reacting to this ghost of yours, and it turned its attention completely away from the battle, instead trying to reach you, hissing all the while like something was upsetting it." She glanced sideways at Melissa and then smiled back at me. "After that I was worried. So I called Melissa to see if she could help identify what was going on." She began to play with her fingers sheepishly. "I felt bad that I hadn't stopped the battle earlier. You obviously weren't well, and I should have forced the battle to stop. I've never had someone that needed to be hospitalised within a battle before."

I smiled at her. "Thanks for the concern."

Melissa shifted in her seat slightly. "She had every right to be. If you have a shedinja hunting after you, then the only thing you can do is have another ghost destroy it. Ghosts are strange in that they only pass on if they decide to stop living, or if they are forcibly removed from the world by another ghost."

A little bit of hope flared in my chest. "Does that mean I can get Loki – my sableye – to get rid of it?"

She shook her head. "The only ghosts with the ability to do so permanently are dusknoir. Otherwise, they'll only be able to keep it away for a little while. The only thing I can advise is keeping out something to ward off ghosts as much as you can. Do you have any dark pokémon?"

I nodded. "I've got a sableye and a nuzleaf that's becoming a shiftry."

"That thing's strong," Veronique said with a scornful laugh. "It damn well broke out of its ball when everything kicked off with you, and I had to use one of my stronger pokémon to knock it out to recall it. It wouldn't let anyone near you, and it and your sableye were both growling at something we couldn't see."

"Which means there was definitely a ghost there," Melissa supplied. "The doctors aren't going to believe this is the cause, as despite everything that we see in the pokémon world, they still seem to believe that if they can't put a medical explanation down for something, it has to be psychological." She sighed and shook her head. "It's amazing that despite everything, they still can't accept something that there's no definite proof for. Even with people like myself and Phoebe supplying bountiful information."

I didn't know how Phoebe was, though made no comment towards it. Instead I nodded and thanked her for her help, and fished through my poké balls for Lacey's ball. I was thankful that I'd taken the time to label them after Mia had given me the idea when I was with her a few days prior. It wasn't anything original, simply my initials coupled with the first two letters of the pokémon's name.

I let her out of her ball, and noticed that she was instantly on guard, staring at both the women with me with a suspicious gaze. I reassured her as quickly as I could, and she accepted my assurances reluctantly, though I saw that she kept her guard up and her gaze trained on them both. On some level, it made me proud.

I saw Melissa stare at Lacey with deep concentration, and felt worry blossom within me once more. I began to panic, thinking she could see something about Lacey's past, and possibly be able to link me to everything I'd done.

Thankfully, it proved not to be the case when she looked away and shook her head. "I've never liked dark pokémon," she admitted with a thoughtful expression. "They're shielded from all forms of psychic intrusion, and they're resistant to even connections from the spirit plane. It's almost like trying to look at something whilst you have horrible eyesight; I can't see anything but a blur."

I felt some form of relief, though knew there was a chance she had some idea of what e and my pokémon were actually like.

"Well, I'm afraid that's all the help I can be here," Melissa said as she stood up. She smiled at me, shook my hand and then straightened out her skirt. "I wish you all the luck with your journey, and hope you survive this ghost long enough to battle me in my gym." She caught sight of the way my face fell and offered a small, reassuring glance. "I'm confident that you'll be able to do so. Keep either of your dark pokémon with you at all times, and you should find that it should not bother you. Although-" she herself pulled a face as she thought about something. "If the ghost has truly inhabited the body of your dead makuhita, it means that its natural ability will be transferred to it. Which means that you shall only be able to damage it with any ghostly attacks, or perhaps those from flying pokémon."

I felt myself die a little on the inside. That effectively ruled out any of my pokémon. I knew Loki had a form of a ghostly attack with his continual shadow-attacks, though didn't have any sort of flyer that could assault it.

Veronique must have noticed the conflict on my face, for she leant forwards and went to place her hand on me. Lacey however, took it as a threat, and she hissed at her. I reassured my pokémon once more, realising that she considered Veronique a threat since we were battling her for a gym badge earlier. I realised I would have to explain to her the concept of gym battles when I could.

"You can train your sableye to use more ghostly attacks – your nuzleaf too," Melissa supplied as Veronique inched away from Lacey, wary of the threat the pokémon could pose.

"There's a few flyers nearby you can capture too," Veronique explained. "You can find wingull and mantine nearby the coast and along the sea, and further towards Mauville you can capture the likes of taillow and pidgey."

I nodded and filed the information away, thanking them once more. Both women bid me good luck and wished me well on my journey, and turned to leave. After a few steps, however, Veronique stopped in her tracks and turned back to me.

"Here," she said, and handed me a small slip of paper. "It's my number," she explained for me, obviously seeing how confused I look. "I want you to call me once you've dealt with this ghost problem of yours, if only to make me worry a little less." She smiled and looked at me, seeing something that I obviously couldn't. "You remind me of my little brother," she said, out of the blue. "He's in Kanto at the moment, though your stubbornness and general attitude of 'I'll sort everything out myself' really remind me of him. I want you to use that number to call when this whole thing is sorted, and then after that, we can have our rematch, if you still want one. Even if I'm just being like a crazy older sister, I'll still rest easier knowing that you're not decomposing in a ditch somewhere."

I couldn't help but laugh at that, even if it made her give me a weird look. I promised her that I would ring her when I'd dealt with the makuhita problem. She bid me goodbye once more, and I found myself left alone with Lacey.

She looked at me, uttered something and then turned to sniff at the air. I wondered just what she meant, until I caught sight of her staring around the ward, looking with great intrigue towards the I.V. drip attached to my arm, and the various drug charts around the room.

I quickly realised how bad an idea it was to let her out in a hospital full of poisons, and even worse, a place full of people that were on death's door. I pulled her close and made it clear to her that there were security cameras everywhere in the hospital, and there was no chance she'd be able to have her fun without anyone hearing. I knew that if she decided to play up, I could always press the ugly heat blister still welting on her chest. I'd been given a salve to place on it, though let Lacey herself put it on, figuring she was likely to kill me for getting too intrusive.

Yet despite that, she was my safest option to look after me. Xander wouldn't be able to defend me against the makuhita, and I didn't feel confident in letting Loki out within the hospital. No doubt he would cause mayhem and havoc, and probably end up giving a few people a heart attack.

I doubted that would go down well.

I knew that I needed to get out of the hospital as soon as I could. When the doctor finally came back round to check on me again, I asked him how soon I could check out of the hospital. He explained to me that really, I shouldn't leave for another day, since they still hadn't come out with a definite cause for what happened to me. Though he mentioned that I could check out if I felt well enough, to which I agreed to and convinced him to get someone to bring me my bag back again.

It amazed me entirely when I found Lacey's plants in there, as well as my weapons. I looked at her in shock, and saw the glint in her eye coupled with the malevolent smirk. Somehow she'd managed to sneak everything in there without anyone noticing, and hide them all from the doctors and nurses that would have checked my belongings when I was admitted.

In less than an hour, I had managed to leave the hospital. The doctor had once more tried to convince me not to leave and stay in for treatment, though I ignored it completely. If I was left alone in the hospital, I didn't want to take my chances with the makuhita stalking me. At least out in the wilds, I could run. Even if there was no one to rush me to hospital next time, I decided that it would be safer if other pokémon were around that would react towards it.

I decided that since I was near Mauville, I would go and visit Jennifer again. I figured it would take me only a fortnight at most to reach her house, and hoped that she was still around to talk to. I knew she said before I left that she wouldn't be around after about a month, though I still had high hopes regardless.

If nothing else, at least I would get out of Slateport for a good while.

* * *

It had been two days since I had left Slateport, and I had seen nothing of the strange makuhita stalking after me. I rested by the large stream in the route most nights, knowing that if something came after me, I could escape quickly into it.

It also meant I could let Xander out to swim alongside me whilst I let Lacey out. She was surprisingly calm the whole while that I let her out, and I'd hadn't seen her sneak off to try and murder something. The blister on her chest was going down quickly, though I did have to stop Loki or her a few times from bursting it. When she wasn't trying to pop the blister, she was making a lot more progress with her drills, and I knew that soon enough I would have to make good on my deal to try and teach her how to use a gun.

Meanwhile, I saw that she was doing well with her drills, and saw that she was advancing with her poisoning techniques. Xander was doing well with learning how to increase the amount of mist he could produce around himself, and Loki seemed to be able to dart into the shadows faster, and I was getting him to instinctively turn intangible when there was something growling or the like.

I also saw that like my other two pokémon, he was changing. He had grown a few inches, and seemed to have put on a little weight. But more than that, I noticed that he was darker than normal. The shadows seemed to converge around him, and I noticed that it seemed to seep around him like a black fog.

I didn't know whether it was normal growth, or whether it was because of me letting him become a little darker than most trainers would. But it meant that he was growing and he was getting stronger, so for me, it was good enough.

I watched him play in the stream with Xander and smiled to myself. Above us was the long stretch of road that only cyclists were allowed on, and I rejoiced silently at the coolness hiding in the shadows brought.

In the distance I could see the large metallic structure I knew was the entrance to a large power plant underneath Mauville itself. I could see large radio antennae and satellites stretching out of a large metallic hatch. Even with the large distance, I could see the far away forms of larger electrical pokémon, and found myself thankful that it was located on a separate island. Most of the pokémon I could see were large carnivores that could shock their prey into submission within a few moments. At least with such a distance between us, they wouldn't be able to come after me.

I watched as Lacey stared into the sea and felt slightly bad for her. I knew that she was miles stronger than any other member of my team, and she wouldn't grow as much by training against the weaker wild pokémon I set Xander and Loki on. The best thing was to train her against stronger trainers, though most wouldn't humour me for a battle once they saw I only had two badges. It meant I had to run her with tougher drills, and have her fight stronger wild pokémon – most of which would be able to kill any of us if she couldn't keep it's attention completely closed on her.

It seemed to satisfy her well enough, but I couldn't help but wonder if I should try and capture another strong pokémon to try and give her the best training I could.

Of course, that meant I'd have to capture a pokémon that could kill me quite easily, and then try and get it's obedience too. I doubted I'd be able to convince another pokémon I could kill it with only the poké ball alone too.

I looked back at the distance again, and noticed as something began flying closer to us. I was on guard instantly, and tried to figure out what the creature actually was. All I could tell was that it could fly, and that it was possibly some sort of a fly. I told my pokémon to be on guard, and noticed the buzzing sound when it was close enough.

I saw that it was a dark grey creature that was about ten inches in length. Four wings fluttered on its back, and I could see that on each side one wing was tipped red, and the other blue. Six legs clung to its segmented abdomen, and it stared at us all with only one large eye in the middle of its head. I could see small mandibles around its mouth, and small electrical sacks were obvious on its back and knees.

It was a magnemite; a strange pokémon that I knew had been artificially tampered with. When they were first discovered, they were all only electrical, and caused continual problems with crops, and later radio signals and the like. Eventually someone figured out that they could use magnemite to transmit radio signals, and people began to capture every one of them they could for scientists to tamper with. They began coating the creatures in a natural metallic armour found on the likes of aron and skarmory, and began to release them back into the wild afterwards. It meant that radio signals bounced off them and were amplified, instead of interefered with, though the metallic coatings they had also had the advantage to the species of increasing their electrical potency.

Eventually they adapted to their metallic coatings, and began breeding and passing on such traits. They were an example of how scientists could change the natural biology of pokémon, and the starting tests towards being able to give humans themselves additional qualities.

The pokémon buzzed at us all, flitting around the air around us. I stared at it a moment then decided to ignore it, figuring my pokémon would deal with it in a moment. Every time a pokémon came too close, they had chased it off before it could cause us any trouble.

This one was slightly different though. Every time one of my pokémon went to attack it to fend it off, it simply flew out of the way and then darted back in sight again, seemingly having fun all the while. It reminded me of when the little insects would get stuck in a room, and when you tried to swat it, it would fly away though return quickly afterwards.

The reactions between my pokémon were all different, even as it buzzed around them all. Xander realised quickly it wasn't going away, and decided to ignore it, probably hoping it would fly away when it was bored. Lacey just glared daggers at it, and would swipe at it every time it came too close. Though Loki would continue to chase the buzzing creature, skipping after it and attempting to swipe at it multiple times, even though it would occasionally zap him with little electric shocks.

I watched it with a small sense of curiosity, wondering why it wasn't actually attacking, or why there were no other pokémon taking advantage of its distraction to attack us. It made me realise that rather like Loki, the creature just liked attention.

I made a quick count of the poké balls I had in my pack. I cursed and realised I only had one left out of the five I first received. Two were currently in use with my two dark pokémon, and the other two were used on the dead wurmple and makuhita, and were now as dead as them. I needed a flyer, as per the advice of Melissa and Veronique. Though I knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity to capture something like a magnemite – I knew that they were able to resist almost every sort of attack thrown at them by any other pokémon.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture one.

I saw that by some strange turn of events, the magnemite's attention was completely trained on Loki. That in itself meant that I'd be able to get a few good attacks in.

"Xander," I whispered, refusing to move much, just in case I freaked it out. "Move out of the water, then blast it enough to knock it to the floor."

He croaked and pulled himself from the stream, his attention rapt on the bug. It flickered around Loki, darting ever closer towards him then flying back away when he tried to snatch it from the air itself. It continued once or twice just before it was blindsided by a stream of water. It buzzed angrily and dropped to the floor, its wings beating angrily.

"Get it," I said to Loki, aware I didn't want the creature to break free of the only ball I had left. "But keep it alive," I added.

He cackled happily, able to finally get the creature now that it was wet and grounded. However, it could still fight back, as he found out when it shot him with a jolt of electricity at close range. Loki shrieked and leapt backwards, though growled lowly afterwards, baring his claws and fangs threateningly. The magnemite scuttled forwards to attack, though Loki laughed and jumped over it, raking his claws down across its back. He spun in the air and kicked the pokémon at the bottom of its body, making it bounce across the grass, hissing pained noises.

The magnemite pulled itself up onto its feet, and I saw its wings beat faster and faster. I went to yell at Loki to jump back, though the creature took a breath, and suddenly a horrible screeching sound poured out of its body. I cried out and threw my hands over my ears, and noted dimly that Lacey and Loki did the same, whilst Xander dove back underneath the water.

I felt something wet and warm lick my palms, and noted with some horror that blood was leaking out of my ears. My head was spinning, with the whole world around me becoming nothing more than a swirling blur of colours and motion.

I needed to be sick.

Finally it seemed that Lacey had suffered enough, for she raced up to the creature, picked it up and then slammed it down against the ground, once, twice and then a third time, until the sound stopped. It buzzed weakly, wings flickering with what seemed to be fatigued pain, and I saw small flecks of blood fly from its mouth every time it breathed.

I thanked Lacey, and supposed I should have just been thankful she didn't kill the creature as I tossed the poké ball at it. The light on it blinked once and it made a small clicking sound as soon as the pokémon was sucked in.

I smiled to myself as I snatched the ball from the floor and placed it onto my bandolier. I'd managed to capture another pokémon, and realised as I tried to wipe away the blood from my ears that it could be quite strong with enough training. Already I had begun to formulate plans for it, and figured that I would have to get myself some form of ear protection if I wanted to exploit its horrific screeching noises.

After thanking Loki and Xander as well, and letting them get back to spending some time relaxing, I whipped out my pokédex and scanned the magnemite's poké ball.

The information it provided told me it was almost a year and a half old, and then detailed that its species were all hermaphrodites – they all were both male and female. Supposedly they could swap between genders when they needed to breed.

I thought about it as I replaced the machine back into a pocket. As alien as pokémon once were to me, I had realised that they did make my life more interesting, and they were some strange sort of family to me. It felt strange to me to have I pokémon that I couldn't really refer to by gender terms. I knew there would be something that would define its gender – for one thing, those that were females first had larger magnet colours on their wings than the males. I decided that when I got a close enough view of it, I would identify its gender by that.

Though somehow I knew it would fit in perfectly with my madcap team.

* * *

It was a day later that I managed to reach a small village halfway between Slateport and Mauville. I figured I still had a good day or two to reach Jennifer's, though opted to rest for the night in the pokémon centre.

I hadn't let the magnemite out of the poké ball since I'd caught it, as I wasn't sure how badly it was injured, and just whether or not I could treat it myself. Thankfully though, when I handed over my pokémon to the nurse, she explained after a quick scan that it wasn't too grievously injured, and that it would only need an overnight stay in the centre.

With all my pokémon being treated, I found myself hovering around in the pokémon centre's waiting room for a while. It was the only place where other people were, and I felt that I could do with sitting down and listening into conversations for a bit, if only to find out what was going on in the world. I still hadn't found out any more about what the unknown man on the boat was talking about, nor had I heard anything further about Aaron's death.

Within five minutes sat in the room with trainers talking and the television on, I'd found out that they'd managed to recover fingerprints and shoeprints from the scenes of both Aaron's murder, as well as the Hoenn champion, and had managed to link the two together. It meant that now the news – and thus the public – knew that the police were hunting after one person responsible for the crimes.

I felt my stomach do a little flip and turned my attention away from it as quickly as it could. My whole mind was awash with mental scenarios of my capture, and how I would be imprisoned and unable to help anyone in the quest I'd found myself thrust into.

It seemed that my brain never truly was allowed to rest. If I wasn't panicking about someone finding out that I'd killed Aaron, I was playing out scenarios that they'd discovered that I'd caused the death of the champion in Dewford. If not that, then I was suffering the memories of the demons, and seeing them every time I shut my eyes. Then once in a while, I would be treated with the thought of how badly the world would screw up if I managed to fail.

I think it was a miracle itself that I managed to stay sane the whole while.

I let my mind clear for a little while and instead just listened to the aimless conversations in the centre. Some trainer had just captured a duskull, another said his zigzagoon had disappeared for a day, and returned as a fully grown linoone. One of two people were talking about their gym battles in Mauville or Slateport, and a few older trainers were talking about how well they did in the contests.

One thing I noticed though, was that everyone in the waiting room was talking to someone they obviously knew. I saw friends, best friends and couples among them all, and felt strangely alone amongst them all. I realised that I was probably one of the few trainers that actually managed to travel around on their own. I knew that so many trainers would eventually join up and travel in groups, and couldn't help but hope that I would get to experience that too.

Though I knew that the burden of my journey was mine to bear. I doubted that any other person would believe my tale, and doubted even more that people would want to help me. Perhaps even more so considering that I actually had no idea what it was I needed to do, and that I was only collecting badges in the hope that I would be able to use them to influence people.

I truly never believed that anyone would ever trust that my past was actually real.

Without my pokémon, I found that I pretty much stayed out in public areas, not talking to anyone. I felt safer around people, yet I didn't feel safe enough to talk to them. I still didn't want to talk to strangers, just through the fear that they were as warped and corrupted as the people I'd removed from the world. At least when they were strangers to me, it was only my imagination that made them horrible people.

I spent most of the night researching as much as I could on magnemite, as well as trying to remember everything I could about my past. I ended up going to bed without realising anything new, and resolved to capture myself a psychic whenever I first could.

Though I also found out it would be a long while until I would find a psychic I could actually capture. The pokédex told me that the closest psychic pokémon to me were spoink, and they were all the way near Lavaridge. I figured it would be a good three weeks, at least, until I would come anywhere near there. Otherwise I could go back through Rustboro and head up to Meteor Falls, which would probably take a week longer.

Either way, it looked like I wasn't going to capture one soon. I knew I could try and trade a pokémon for one, but doubted anyone would want any of my pokémon, and I didn't want to get rid of any of my pokémon. I figured I could probably buy one, but with less than a thousand poké to my name, I doubted I could even come anywhere near to affording anything even as common as exeggcute.

I pushed the thought out of my head as I set off into the early morning, keen on making good time. I walked for about a mile, and figured I was far enough away from the centre before I released all of my pokémon, bar the magnemite. I explained to them quickly to keep calm and subdue the magnemite – making it clear to both Lacey and Loki not to kill it.

"Ready guys?" I asked them, and smiled when they all nodded. I clutched the magnemite's poké ball and released the creature, watching as the white light poured into the familiar insect shape of the pokémon.

It buzzed when it noticed its surroundings, and its one eye narrowed on me. The buzzing noise increased, and I clamped my hands over my ears, remembering what happened last time. However, this time it shocked me, and I yelped as electricity flooded through me, making it feel like I'd just received a large static shock.

I dimly heard my pokémon attack the creature, and figured out that the magnemite was faster than all of the pokémon I had. I groaned and realised that it was most likely going to be a lot of effort to try and train the pokémon, let alone get it to stop attacking randomly.

It buzzed again, and I saw that Xander had soaked it, and again it was on the floor, attempting to fly once more. I crouched before it and made sure to keep my distance, just in case it tried to shock me once more. Though I still had the problem of what to actually say to the pokémon and make it understand what I was talking about.

"Urm, hi," I said to it, and fell backwards onto my backside as it shot more electricity at me. I yelped and backed away, though motioned for my pokémon to stay back. I saw its wings stop beating a moment, and caught a long enough glance to see how far down the red and blue stretched.

It solved one problem at least. The magnemite was female.

"Stop attacking me!" I yelled at it, and watched as it scuttled backwards slightly. "Look," I sighed, and pulled a hand across my face. "I'm your trainer. I can help you become strong, as long as you listen to the commands I give you."

She buzzed once more and then more electricity shot out of her body and into the ground before me. I groaned and recalled her back into her poké ball, deciding that I'd try again later with her.

"I guess I'm never going to be as lucky as I was with you," I lamented, speaking to Xander. "Or if I do get a pokémon that obeys me quickly, it's probably going to be killed quickly."

I sighed and moved onwards, keeping my pokémon out as we travelled forwards. They didn't seem to object, and Loki would gleefully dash into the undergrowth occasionally, trying to rip apart and consume some poor bug or the like. After a few failed attempts, Lacey was the one to roll her eyes and follow after him, and they returned after ten minutes, trails of sickly green liquids covering their teeth and dripping from their mouths.

At least my pokémon were getting along – even if Lacey was teaching Loki more efficient ways to kill things.

When we eventually settled to run drills for a short time again, I knew I had to release the magnemite and get it to join in with the training. Yet again after I released her, her eye narrowed on me, and she flitted around me, buzzing something I couldn't understand all the while. Eventually she settled on my head – which _may_ have freaked me out a little bit – something which Loki found incredibly amusing. He cackled at the sight of me walking around with an electrical insect on my head, and I saw both Lacey and Xander try and hide their laughs from me.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I groaned, and wished that I had some ear plugs or the like to stop the creature's incessant buzzing from atop my head. Every time I tried to remove it from my head, I heard the buzzes increase in volume, and felt tiny static shocks fly from its legs and chest. For whatever reason, it decided that my head was a perfect perch for it, and it would happily try and shock any sort of insect or bird that flew too close to us.

I sighed and gave up trying to pry it from my head. I couldn't use Xander to blast it off, if only because then I would be soaked too, which wouldn't end well if the magnemite discharged in fright or attack. Every time Lacey or Loki came close to getting her off, she would start to build up electricity again, and I had to get them to stop, if only through fearing that my skull was about to light up like a lamp.

It was about ten minutes before I even remembered I had the creature's poké ball attached to my bandolier. I cursed my own stupidity and plucked it free, recalling the pokémon before it could try and shock me. Instantly my hair seemed to flatten, and I didn't want to look how ridiculous it looked. I had the feeling it most likely made me look like I'd stuck my finger in a plug socket, which I guessed was the most normal assumption people would go for.

I released her again, and this time kept jumping out of the way every time she came close enough to land on my head. I saw something like amusement in her eye, and then she began to randomly discharge weak bolts of electricity as she flittered after me. Thankfully it stopped when Xander soaked her once more, and she fell to the ground, wings too wet to keep her airborne.

I thanked him and crouched down to the creature, stretching my hand out towards her experimentally. "You really need to start listening a bit," I said, not knowing whether or not she could understand me. I saw her scuttle towards me slightly, and I scratched the top of her head with two fingers. "If you want to play, that's all well and good, but you still need to train too."

She looked up at me, blinked with her one eye and then decided to shock my fingers with a little static shock. I winced and drew my hand back, and realised that I probably wasn't going about it the best way I could. I realised that I would have to begin to train it like I did Xander and Loki. I was lucky with Lacey that she could understand me from the get-go, so all I needed to do was explain everything to her, and she knew what I meant.

It meant that the whole time I ran drills with them, I let the magnemite flitter around again, or just sit on my head, and started pointing out everything she did right. After two hours, I'd managed to get her to understand what I meant when I told her to shock something, though most of the time she still wouldn't respond straight away.

Regardless, with her not trying to fry us anytime soon, I decided to keep her out with the rest of my team, if only to let her get adjusted. I saw that when she detached herself from me to eat some food, Lacey said something to her which she didn't seem to agree with. Instantly she shocked the nuzleaf, and I saw that Loki burst into laughter, applauding all the while. I saw Lacey's eyes darken and had to throw myself at her, telling her that she wasn't allowed to kill the magnemite. The whole time the creature was flitting around behind me, no doubt tormenting Lacey further. Eventually Lacey let out a guttural hiss, turned away and stalked off into the wilds for about an hour.

When she came back bloody and slightly beaten, I only hoped that she had picked a fight with a pokémon, rather than a trainer.

Regardless, I made sure to praise her for at least going off to kill a random wild pokémon, and hoped that she wouldn't have the urge to kill anything else anytime soon. Though even her murderous spirits weren't enough to dampen my mood, as I found myself strangely happy and content as we trekked towards Jennifer's, if only because my team of pokémon were coming together, and I would be able to see the woman who helped me with my journey again.

It took another day and a bit before I managed to reach Jennifer's house, and I found that even the sight of it alone brought a smile to my face. Nothing seemed to have changed with it, and I even saw that her pet glameow was still skulking around the outside, preying on random pokémon that lived within the garden.

I felt that her house was the perfect picture of what people wanted when they had a family, and couldn't help but imagine the shock on her face when she answered the door to see me there. I got to the door without disturbing Whiskers and rang the doorbell, waiting for someone to answer.

When it opened, I was surprised that it wasn't Jennifer that opened it. Instead it was a girl about my age, with brown hair pulled back and up into a pony tail. She had the same colour eyes as Jennifer, and was dressed in a loose fitting white top and tight blue jeans.

Though more than any of that, I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy. She'd been crying, and I found myself wondering just why that was, though I think a part of me knew, but refused to admit it to the rest of my brain.

"Hi," I said tentatively, my comfort zone thrown completely out the window. I felt like an intruder into something, and hoped that wasn't the case. "Is Jennifer around?" I asked, peering slightly behind the door to see into the house.

If it were possible, the girl looked sadder in an instant. "She's not," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "She died."

It was like someone had punched me in the gut. Jennifer had died, before I had even got the chance to see her again? The last time I'd spoken to her was for a brief few minutes after I got out of the Petalburg Woods, and she sounded well enough. I just couldn't believe it.

I went to ask how, but my brain kicked into gear just before I asked the stupid question. Instead I found myself asking, "When?"

The girl sniffed. "About a week ago." She took a deep breath and gave me a small, tentative smile. "So who may I ask is enquiring?"

I told her my name, and saw a flair of recognition in her eyes. I was expecting a number of scenarios, but what I wasn't expecting was for her to punch me in the jaw. She put enough force behind it to knock me to the floor, and my whole face erupted with stinging pain.

"You _bastard_!" she shrieked at me, leaping at me and attempting to pummel me further. "You caused all of this! And then you come back after she's dead!" She continued trying to hit me, and I put all my effort into just trying to stop her blows. "Why are you back here? Couldn't you do the decent thing and disappear off the face of the world? You made my mother get a tumour! You... you killed her," she sobbed, and stopped her assault, climbing off me slowly. "You killed her," she repeated, burying her face in her hands.

"I didn't," I whispered as I pulled myself to my feet. My whole heart felt like it had been torn out, and every accusation the girl threw at me felt like something else was being ripped out. "It wasn't... I wasn't ever meant to be here in the first place!" I found myself telling her, regardless of her sobs. "Jennifer did everything she did even when I had no idea she existed! She died _decades_ before I was even _born!_" I stopped and dropped my head. "It wasn't me who was meant to be here..."

The girl – I distantly remembered Jennifer telling me her daughter's name was Erica – sniffed and wiped a hand underneath her nose. "What do you mean it wasn't you who was meant to be here?"

She knew I was from the future, at least. I felt like I couldn't lie to her about anything more, especially since her mother had just died.

"I was never celebi's choice," I admitted, and saw the way her eyes widened. "Originally it was meant to be someone I knew, someone in my base camp called Alex." I stopped and scratched my cheek as I thought about it. In a way, it was all my own fault that I had ended up taking his place. "I saw him escaping and followed after him, alerting the other guards on the way. I followed him to a small clearing where a celebi appeared, and I heard him talking to it. When he mentioned that he could stop our future from ever happening, I froze. But the guards I called appeared moments later and killed him. After that, the celebi ended up taking me, as I was the next best thing.

"Celebi chose me because I was the next best tool for the job," I admitted through gritted teeth. The thought of being nothing more than a plaything for some higher creature still irked me, and it made me feel like I never had any purpose in life. "It chose me in that moment because I was the next best thing for the job. Do you know how that _feels_?" I asked her, forgetting for a moment that her mother had only recently died. "Alex was chosen because he was the best _person_ for the job. I'm just here because I'm the best _tool_ for it all!"

Erica looked up at me a moment, and our eyes met. I think she realised everything I was saying was the truth, and how much it actually hurt me, even if I had never admitted it before – even to myself. She dropped her gaze finally and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said, and felt heavy and sad all at once again. "I'm sorry I went off like that. You've just lost your mother, I shouldn't have gone about screaming like everything in my life was so much worse."

"But still," she whispered, then sniffed and laughed morosely. "Do you want to come in for a drink or something?" she asked.

I nodded. "That'd be nice."

She smiled slightly and walked back into the house, holding the door open for me. Instantly I noticed that the entire house felt different from the last time I was there. When Jennifer was there, it felt so homely and welcoming. Without her... it just felt so empty and dead. It took everything in me to stop myself from shuddering at the feeling of it, and I simply pretended the goose bumps on my skin were from the cold.

Just in case it was a repeat of the makuhita, I asked Erica if she minded if I let a pokémon out. When she told me it was fine, I let out Lacey, and took some small comfort in her presence, and the fact that the house didn't feel any less dead. In my mind, it told me that at least it wasn't the undead makuhita stalking me.

When Erica returned from the kitchen, she took note of Lacey and smiled slightly. "Mum told me you only set out on your journey about two and a bit months ago. That nuzleaf of yours looks a lot older." She handed me a cup of coffee, and gave me a small smile, explaining that she'd taken the liberty to Irish it up. "Either you caught her as a young nuzleaf and you have a leaf stone on you, or you've somehow managed to get the cooperation of an old one."

I smiled and took a small sip of the drink, marvelling at how well the coffee mixed together with whatever she'd placed in it. "The latter," I said, hoping I wouldn't have to explain much. "It took a while, but eventually I got her to listen and understand me."

Lacey shot me a look, clearly mutinous to everything I said. Thankfully though, Erica missed it and explained, "I caught a magmar a few years back that was becoming a magmortar. Can't say I had your quick luck though – it took me almost six months to get him to listen to me fully, and a little while longer to stop making explosions."

I shot a look a Lacey, trying to ensure that she kept quiet. She rolled her eyes at me, almost as if to point out that Erica couldn't understand her anyway. "I guess I was just lucky with Lacey," I said, not saying that it was mostly all bad luck. I doubted anyone would call the events that lead up to me getting her respect as good luck.

Erica nodded and seemed to want to say something. She kept starting and stopping a sentence until eventually she asked, "So how do you plan on saving the world then?"

Put like that, it sounded like she was being sarcastic or patronising. However, I knew she was trying her best to understand, as well as to make sure her mother's death wasn't in vain.

I sighed. "I don't know," I admitted, staring down at the cup I cradled in my hands. "I was never told what it was I needed to stop, change or do. The damned celebi took off after it dropped me here, and I haven't heard from it since. My only thoughts at the moment are to collect gym badges and try to look like a normal trainer, and hopefully along the way I'll find out something."

She nodded, though it was obvious she wasn't totally pleased with my answer. "So how many badges do you have then?"

"Two," I admitted, still staring at my cup. "I got Rustboro's and Dewford's, though the one in Slateport was too tough for me."

Erica nodded. "It usually is. It took me a good four tries to get the badge from there. Really the only people who do well in there are those that started off with a torchic or another fire type, or anyone that has a fighter or a ground-based pokémon. Everything else just tends to fail against the gym there." I lifted my gaze and saw her press a hand to her forehead and lean on the table. "So you have no idea how you're going to save everything?" she whispered.

"I wish I actually did," I confided in her. "But so far, I can't think of anything I need to do. Actually," I said, realising something. I saw her face look at me in interest, and I hoped what I had was enough. "I heard someone on the boat to Slateport before. These virus outbreaks that occurred in Oldale and Petalburg are linked – they're being masterminded by some company. I think they're trying to release a new drug or something, because the guy was getting pissed that people had actually died. But I can't figure out who's actually doing it, or what they're actually doing," I ended with a sour note.

She pulled a face and sighed. "Are these virus outbreaks anything you've heard of before?" I shook my head, and she bit her bottom lip. "What about the symptoms? Have you heard of them?"

Again I shook my head. "I haven't heard anything about the symptoms. Besides, if it was the virus that plagued my time, people would know about it. There'd be a media frenzy with people trying to explain it, and the whole world would know about it by now."

She sighed again. "You need a psychic," she informed me, telling me what I already knew. "I wish I could give you one, but I don't have any psychics."

"But, I thought that most trainers would capture psychic pokémon?" I found myself asking. Lacey grunted a sarcastic noise, and again I wondered if she had a trainer. Though I remembered her cache of victims beneath the hut, and guessed that she had seen a great many number of trainers without any sort of psychic pokémon.

"Not all of them," Erica said, unaware of my pokémon's sarcastic grunts. "Psychics happen to be among some of the hardest pokémon to train. Added to that, they're incredibly rare in the wild, and can outsmart most trainers quite easily. Usually a trainer has to hunt a good while to be lucky enough to capture one, or buy one from a pokémon breeder." She tapped her fingernails against the table in thought. "Though there are sometimes when some trainers have been attacked by psychics, for whatever reason. In those cases, the trainer often turns round and captures one of them – though of course you've got to be able to survive and get away from the others to train it."

I groaned and wilted onto the table. My only chances of capturing a psychic were buying one, hunting one down, or being hunted by them and somehow capturing one. I considered that maybe the celebi was some sort of sadistic bastard that wanted to watch me suffer as I tried to carry out its plans. If it truly wanted me to save the world, why couldn't it help me more directly?

Though if I wanted answers to that, I needed a psychic, or to find the bastard imp itself. I figured that the latter was about as likely as me waking up one day to find out the whole journey had been only a dream.

After that we talked some more, and the conversation kept dropping back to Jennifer. Erica would tell me all these stories she had about her mother, ranging from how she once saw her take on a wild manetric with Whiskers and defeat it easily, to humorous ones such as how she once tried cooking a pizza with the plastic still on it, and ended up setting fire to the entire kitchen.

I felt bad that I didn't have anything I could really share with her, but Erica seemed happy enough that she had someone to talk to about her mother. She burst into tears a few times whilst she talked about her, and I felt a lump in my own throat after a while, though I felt like I'd cried enough since the demons captured me. I still felt so hollow inside though, and every time I forgot and then realised again that Jennifer was dead, it was like someone had ripped out another piece of my insides.

I was too late to see her another time, and she died without me ever getting to see her again.

Distantly, I began to think about why it was me chosen to carry out the celebi's wishes, and why people seemed to have to die in order for my goal to succeed. I just wished then and there that she would be the only person that would have to die for me to complete that quest.

Though I think all my wishes were used up in getting to this world in the first place.


	24. Live, Learn and Adjust

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Live, Learn and Adjust

* * *

**

_Don't be so damn hard on yourself. Yeah, you screwed up. You're not perfect, fine. Learn from it. But don't punish yourself. Be kind to you, even when you screw up. You'll bounce back eventually. You'll make up for it. _~ Stephanie Klein.

**-O-O-O-**

"_Live, learn and adjust. If you can't follow that rule, you're never going to succeed in life. Take what you've learnt and use it in your future. If you always dwell on the 'what ifs' of the past or the future, you're just going to screw up somewhere along the line."_

- Veronique Faust, Slateport City Gym Leader 3005-3013. _(April 3__rd__, 3010)_

**-O-O-O-**

The next day I woke up early and managed to bump into Erica in the kitchen. She offered me a sad smile and obviously tried to keep herself together as she went about her daily business.

I found myself watching her for a moment; a plan forming within my mind. While on some level I felt that it was _my_ journey to save the world as the celebi had chosen _me_, it was strange to know that someone else in the world knew about it all. I figured that she would be the only person I would be able to talk to about my predicament, and that I could use the sanity I would get by being able to actually mention the things that were going on to her, rather than pressing them further and further down.

"So what're you going to do now?" I asked her after thankfully accepting the tea she placed in front of me.

She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, wiping small traces of make-up away and showing the bags hidden underneath. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "The house is left to me, and I don't know what to do with it. I don't want to live in it, but I'm not sure if I could just sell it and take Whiskers with me – he's a house-cat at heart, not a battler."

I nodded, then smiled and took a deep breath. "You could always travel with me," I offered. "It would be... nice to have someone with me I could talk to about what's going on."

Erica smiled once more, though I knew my answer by the sadness of her eyes. "I can't," she whispered, and shook her head. "Believe me, I would love nothing more than to be able to help you... but I just can't."

It made no sense. "What do you mean?" I asked her, completely confused. "Is there something that's preventing you going on a journey?"

"It's not that," Erica confided with a soft frown. "I..." she sighed and sat on a stool opposite me, staring into the murky brown waters of her own tea. "Mum told me... back when she first started conversing with the celebi... that I wasn't allowed to go and help."

My previous confusion was amplified about twelve times. "What do you mean?" I asked once more, though this time a little more fiercely that I meant.

"I _can't_ go with you," she told me, hissing the words through her teeth. "Mum looked at my future, if only because she wouldn't be around to see it – so she said. She said there were a few paths she could see me taking, and one of them was journeying with you – accepting this very offer you're making now."

I was becoming more lost every time she spoke. "So why can't you accept it, if it's one thing you were meant to do?"

She shrugged, scowled and then dipped her head. "I promised her I wouldn't. She told me that something bad would happen if I journeyed with you... I think she saw me die or something," she said with a shrug. "I don't know _why_ I'm not allowed to go with you, I just know that my mother screamed at me for two weeks straight and made me swear on her grave-to-be that I wouldn't accept your offer."

The words stung, though I didn't fully comprehend why. At most, I could only gather that it had to be that even though Jennifer had trusted me with the fate of the world, she didn't trust me to keep her daughter alive.

"But she's not here, so..." I tried.

"I _can't_," Erica hissed, slamming her fist down on the table. "There's going to be a lot of shit that happens on your journey, and a lot of it isn't going to be a walk in the park. People are going to die, alright?" she shouted, glaring at me over the counter. "No matter what you do, there's going to be death. It might be people around you, it might be people you've only looked at once in the street, or it might even be people that you've never met. But mum told me that if I went with you, I'd die!"

I blinked, stunned by her words. "But... you said she never told you anything," I whispered, even more confused.

"I lied, okay?" she growled, and gripped a fistful of her hair. "Sorry," she whispered, softly, and sighed as she buried both hands in her hair. "Mum told me that if I helped you, I'd be captured and executed for some reason."

My eyes widened and my blood ran cold. "Does that mean... I'll be executed... or anyone that travels with me will?"

She shrugged once more. "No. Yes. I don't know. All I know is that my mum told me I could help you more if I stayed away, and helped you from the sidelines." She growled and flung her hands to the table, hitting it with fierce force. "You think it doesn't bother me that I know I can't help you?" she shouted suddenly, and leapt from her seat, beginning to pace the room in venting rage. "You think that I don't _want_ to help? You think that it isn't driving me mad that I know this is happening, and I can't do _anything_ about it? I just know that this is the safest and most productive path for me to take!"

I nodded slowly, trying to calm her and understand her words both. "What do you mean by 'path'?" I asked, intrigued. "You keep mentioning these paths you could take. What does it all mean?"

She groaned once more and sat down, burying her face on the table again. "I don't understand it much," she admitted, and pulled her face up. "But what I do understand is that apparently time is constantly moving, shifting around us. Apparently, there's always a number of choices we make that influence how everything happens. At certain points, we have a choice, and by taking that, every over path disappears from existence, and then a new map of sorts of made from the choices we made.

"It's like in a videogame, where you're given a set amount of choices to make," she said, attempting to break the information through to me. "In some games, if you make a certain decision, the rest of the game and the plot revolve around that decision you made. And no matter how much you try, you can't go back and change the choice you made."

I couldn't help but quip, "But you could always just load your old save file."

Erica growled a laugh and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "But you can't exactly load a save file of your life, can you? Everything's always changing around us, and the smallest, most insignificant things shape what happens. There's only a few things in life that are going to happen, no matter what. Everything else is built on from one giant web of chance and choice."

I tried to wrap my head around it and found the world spinning around me. "So you mean everything that happens is the direct result of decisions made by _everyone_ in existence?"

She shrugged. "I think so. Pokémon supposedly created everything, and from that, the Dialga created time itself. There's a reason why it's a pokémon of myth, and sought after by so many – who wouldn't want the power of being able to reshape time?"

I nodded and saw the truth in her words. If I owned the Dialga, I could easily make sure the world would never be doomed. Of course, for that to happen, I would need to somehow find a mythical creature, capture it or convince it to help my cause, and then survive the whole thing.

Somehow, I didn't think it was that likely.

"So... how can you help me then?" I asked. If she wasn't out with me on my journey, helping to change the world, what good could she do?

"I can be your anchor to sanity," she told me with a small smile. "But more than that, if there's something you need to do in order to preserve the world, there's certain people I can get in contact with that can make everything like that... disappear."

I stared at her a moment, perplexed. "But aren't you like eighteen? How the hell are you going to manage that?"

"Nineteen," she confided with a small smile. "And you think my mum was the only person the celebi contacted?" She laughed at the thought. "One person wouldn't be able to change much for the better, but is more than enough to doom everything. The celebi went to a great number of people, and managed to convince a handful of them. There's people in the legal systems, governments and who knows what else that know of this, and can make any small things you do... _go away_, for want of a better term."

Yet again the room was spinning, and I felt the metaphorical weight on my shoulders increase once more. "There's a whole _group_ of people that know what I'm doing? Why the hell aren't they doing more?" I shouted, slamming my own fists on the counter. Erica shrugged, and I groaned and leant my head on the counter before me. "Talk about no pressure."

She laughed good-naturedly and stared out of the window in a way eerily reminiscent of her mother. "They can't do more, because they don't know who _you_ are, but know of you. I never got the full story from my mother, but apparently if there were too many people who knew of everything, word would get out, and you'd end up being taken in by the governments and tortured for information, if not killed on the spot."

I groaned once more. "Have I ever mentioned I really,_ really_ don't like people?" My face left the counter and I stared at her with a hard expression. "So what can these people cover up?"

Erica shrugged. "I'm not sure, but it obviously can't be something as large as terrorist explosions of buildings. A few deaths here and there, maybe a bit of missing evidence and a few witnesses deciding they've forgot they ever saw you."

My mind flew instantly to Aaron and whether or not his death could be pinned on someone else. Next were the demons of Dewford, though I knew it would be a lot harder to cover up.

Besides, I wasn't totally sure how they fitted in with saving the world. I was sure that if I wanted to abuse these contacts I never knew I had, I'd need some sort of proof.

"So why can't they know who I am?" I asked, genuinely wondering.

She shrugged. "People in high places always have a psychic or two trained on a number of people."

"So why the hell did the celebi never tell me any of this?" I shouted, angry at the world and the stupid time-travelling beast once more. "Why the hell am I forced to go through this all alone?"

She shrugged once more. "I honestly can't say," she told me. "Maybe it's tried, but just can't get through to you. Or maybe appearing before you would endanger you too much. I'm sure it has it's reasons."

"Being that it's a sadistic creature, getting off on my misery and failure?" I grumbled, hating the creature for ever taking me once more.

Though I reckon, the damned thing hated itself for choosing me when everything failed.

* * *

I ended up leaving what used to be Jennifer's home in the early hours of the afternoon, and somehow managed to part on good terms with Erica, even after our respective break downs and shouting matches at each other. She wished me luck in my quest, and told me that if I ever needed help, or just someone to talk to, she was only a phone call away.

With hindsight, perhaps I should have taken advantage of that offer more.

I still didn't understand why she'd been instructed to stay away from my journey, but wasn't about to argue it. Jennifer had abused the power of psychics, so obviously knew a lot more than I would ever hope to.

I decided once more that I needed a psychic, and soon.

I made good time that day, and continued once more in returning to normality. A few times stray pokémon would come towards us, and I lamented the fact that I had no poké balls left to try and capture any of them. Even more so when I had some strange, miraculous stroke of luck when Xander dove into the seas that stemmed from Slateport and came surfaced quickly, with a _dratini_ of all damn things paying with him!

I had no idea what the creature was at the time I saw it, though once I looked it up in the pokédex, I nearly burst into tears at the twisted humour someone no doubt had with my piss-poor luck.

Though I considered it was probably all for the best. It would no doubt take almost five years to train a dratini fully into a dragonite, and by that time I would have hopefully long since saved the world. I could have become a champion trainer after that, but I never really saw myself following such a career path after my journey.

In a way, I guess everything worked out well. At least I didn't have to worry about choosing a career.

The magnemite was still taking a while to train though. Even after a few days trekking towards Mauville, she still couldn't understand most of my commands – save for shock something – and she spent every spare moment attaching herself to something or someone.

I quickly discovered that she was extremely over-affectionate, and couldn't fully control the electricity she had. Thankfully she never discharged anything powerful enough to truly hurt any of us.

Still, it didn't help matters much.

"You realise you can detach yourself now," I groaned at her, attempting to pry the creature off of my right forearm. She buzzed and clicked as I reached over to try and dislodge her, and I felt the familiar crackle of static as the hairs on my arms shot up. Instantly I drew my hand away, and the creature clicked happily, content with being attached to me.

Thankfully it wasn't only me that suffered. She would occasionally laze within the leaf atop Xander's head, sometimes even latching herself to Loki – which was quite funny, considering she was the size of his chest.

Though the funniest had to be every time she attached herself to Lacey. All the white strands of hair on Lacey's body would flare out with static charge, and more often than not I would hear her growl as the magnemite landed on her head. A few times the magnemite would only manage to crush the leaf on Lacey's head, or even just get in the way. Though a few times she managed to get caught in Lacey's hair, which was quite amusing, if nothing else.

Lacey clicked her tongue at me, thankful that I was the one suffering with the magnemite for now. I caught the nuzleaf moving out of the corner of my eye, and leapt back in time to avoid her pulling any pranks.

"Stop that!" I chided her, slapping her arm away. Lacey smirked at me, dropping the stick she'd been trying to poke the magnemite with as if she never held it in the first place. Of course, Loki happened to see what went on and decided that he had to join in too.

"I hate you both," I grumbled as they both picked up sticks and tried to prod the magnemite, causing it to send little shocks through my arm. I sat down beside Xander and used him as a small shield for a little time, thankful that he wasn't old enough to have arms that would enable him to join in with their annoyance.

Thankfully they stopped soon, though it was only because a wingull screeched and dive-bombed at us. We scattered away from the pokémon, wondering just why it had attacked us so randomly, and saw that nearby there were a number of small berry bushes, as well as a nest that obviously belonged to a pack of rattata.

We were obviously in its hunting territory. Though even once we moved, it still continued to squawk and demand vengeance, screeching and blasting at us with small jets of water.

I pulled a face. It could fly, and was far out of range from my other pokémon. I only had the magnemite to fight it, and she was still learning how to battle with my commands. It would probably mean she would have a harder time facing it than she would when she was trained, even if her electrical attacks could severely harm the creature.

I lamented the fact that I didn't have any poké balls left on my person as the wingull screeched again, this time flapping its wings to send a small breeze at us that did nothing more than fluff mine and Lacey's hair. I looked at the magnemite on my arm, and then nodded towards the attacking wingull. "Get it," I commanded, and she met me with a blank one-eyed stare.

I groaned and wondered why the higher powers had to hate me enough to give me such unresponsive pokémon. Why couldn't I just have captured a whole host of pokémon like Lacey, who knew exactly what I meant, but I just needed to earn their respect? Instead I waited for the wingull to try and attack again, though this time I moved my arm enough so the blast of water smacked into the magnemite.

She hissed and buzzed in annoyance, flicking her wings and sending small water droplets spraying all over me. Finally she took off from my arm and flitted around in the air, hissing and clicking wildly at the pokémon.

"Good girl!" I cheered after her. "Now shock it!"

She buzzed something in reply and darted around in the air, taking a moment as the wingull soared in to peck at it. Once it was close enough, the magnemite let out a stream of electrical energy that zapped the creature senseless, and even from my position on the ground, I could smell the bird roasting.

The bird dropped to the floor, charred, smoking and strangely, cooked to perfection. I glanced towards it and saw that it wouldn't be getting up ever again. "So, anyone hungry?" I asked, wondering just what to do with the corpse. Xander croaked refusal, and Lacey turned her head away, though Loki happily leapt upon the corpse and dug into it, filling the air around us with the sounds of flesh being torn from bone, as well as the sounds of bone crunching under his teeth.

The magnemite flitted down to me again and buzzed happily. After I praised her, she seemed to fly higher in the air and then attached herself to my head, clicking happily all the while. I groaned at how over-affectionate she was, and hoped it wouldn't persist into when she was a magneton. Supporting a lightweight bug on my head was alright, but I knew once she evolved, her weight would increase tremendously, and she'd have to use electromagnetism to stay afloat. I doubted that I could support anything that weighed as much as a magneton on my head, or anywhere on my body, for that matter.

I knew that when the scientists first played around with magnemite, they were hoping for a more robotic breed of creatures – ones which could be tuned to follow their ideas, and then carry them out without any sort of emotion or free will. By those standards, my magnemite most definitely would have been seen as some sort of mistake. With the thought of her being an error in scientific experiments, as well as her ability to stop computers from working, I decided to name her Erra.

Of course, that was just one more thing to teach her.

* * *

It was only a few days later that we managed to arrive in Mauville. It was a brilliant industrial city, built up with countless buildings stretching up to the heavens above, and a great number of power lines were constantly pointed out by various signs, always with an additional note that the local council was getting round to repairing them.

It meant that with the exposed power lines, there was an abundance of electric pokémon flocking round the city. Every so often one would race past, leaving little static charges in its wake, and I'd often end up having to restrain Lacey from hunting it down and killing it.

"You can't go round killing things willy-nilly in a city, you realise?" I hissed at her, restraining her with a handful of her long white hair. She pulled her lip back into a snarl and I hastily released it, but kept my gaze serious. "People aren't going to condone what you do like me. They'll hunt you down and kill you _and_ me for being your trainer."

She crossed her arms haughtily, seemingly disbelieving that any mere human could manage to kill her. Thankfully though, she seemed to understand my point, and I made her promise not to kill anything or anyone whilst we were within the city limits. I doubted somehow that she would adhere to it, but the fact that she gave me her word was something.

I just hoped that the journey I was taking her on would be interesting enough to convince her not to randomly kill for fun as much. I could overlook the odd kill here and there, provided that it was only a wild pokémon, or a person that no-one would ever miss.

Though her attention seemed more preoccupied on the fact that Erra was once again latched onto her, though this time the magnemite had nestled itself on Lacey's head, managing to somehow avoid getting tangled in her hair.

Lacey gave me a dirty look for laughing at her, but it wasn't enough to make me stop. At least it meant that the magnemite was just clingy towards everyone on my team, and not just me. Though I did lament the fact that I couldn't have a magnemite that was something like Lacey – in my mind, it would have made my plans all that more easy to carry out.

Though the thought of my plans made me realise I had yet to explain to Lacey exactly what it was I wanted to do on our journey. I gathered that she was only aware that we were travelling around collecting badges, like a typical trainer. I needed to explain to her that wasn't the case, though I also needed to choose somewhere in which I could explain it without people listening in. I doubted the pokémon centre had especially thick walls, and speaking my plans aloud in the town wasn't exactly going to ensure people would overhear. At the very least, I was convinced people would treat me as some sort of mental freak and call the police on me. At worst, I was afraid that they would lock me up and take away my pokémon, or that it would start the very thing I was meant to stop.

I decided not to debate it as I led her towards the pokémon centre, catching her still attempting to wrestle Erra from her out of the corner of my eye. I told her I needed to explain a few things to her after she'd been seen in the pokémon centre, and she gave me a slow, uncertain nod.

Though when I told her I was going to take her to a shooting range to let her practice using a gun, she nearly leapt into the air in joy.

Or rather, she looked like she would have, had she no self-righteous dignity installed into herself.

I found the pokémon centre in quick time and booked all my pokémon in to be checked over. Whilst they were being checked, I made certain to visit the local marts and stock up on everything I needed, predominantly of which, poké balls. It cut my remaining funds down to almost nothing, but at least I had twenty of the capsules in my bag, rather than the complete lack of them I had previously.

Though I doubted I was going to bump into another dratini at any point in the future.

In the mean time I also managed to find a local shooting range, as well as book myself a gym battle within a few days' time. I also found out that it specialised in electric types, so hoped that if I managed to talk to the leader for some time – or even a few people working in the gym – I could get someone in there to explain everything to me about Erra. I wanted to know why it was that she constantly latched onto either myself or my other pokémon.

I made way back to the centre afterwards and collected my pokémon, all fit and healthy, as the nurses told me. They were especially impressed that I had Loki and Lacey both trained and obedient in such a short time, and asked me how I managed to accomplish such a thing. I ended up simply telling them I didn't honestly know how, and something just seemed to clicked after a while.

The nurse seemed convinced by that story alone that somewhere along my lineage, I had to be partially dark adapted. I was impressed that she knew about it – as far as I had been aware until then, only people that were already related to a specialist, or were ones themselves, seemed to know. When I mentioned it to her, she told me that every medical professional had to know and understand it, in order to better make a prognosis on patients.

I'd honestly not ever truly considered it further than a passing mention to Ayde some time before that. I didn't dwell on it long as I thanked her and left the centre, and let out Xander by my side once more. He looked up at me and croaked, and then once more when Lacey appeared beside him. She gave him a minute nod and walked along side me, and for every one of our steps, Xander would have to hop twice after us.

A few people didn't seem too pleased that I had two pokémon out with me, though the majority didn't seem to mind, if only because they were both looked upon as widely non-dangerous pokémon. The thought of it made me laugh. If only they knew the truth about Lacey, I doubted they'd be too happy about me letting her live, let alone walk around with us.

Though I paid their silent criticisms no mind. Xander and Lacey were both grass pokémon, and I knew that they could help each other by just being around each other's presence. I'd seen Xander try and explain the basics of using sunlight to heal himself to her, and she seemed to be teaching him how to make the edges of the leaf on his head razor sharp for attack.

Alongside that, she seemed to be remarkably calmer around him. Loki seemed to bring out the manic and immature nature in all of my pokémon, whilst Xander himself seemed to calm them. By contrast, Lacey just seemed to manage to make them all act a little more sinister, whereas Erra didn't seem to affect any of the others at that point in time.

It was only then I started to realise how much other pokémon learned from each other, as well as from their trainers. Again I lamented the fact that I didn't have any more pokémon like Lacey – old enough to understand everything I taught them, yet still young enough to have plenty of years left in them, and still intelligent enough to learn.

Though I doubted my luck would ever let something like that happen to me.

It took roughly half an hour for me to reach the shooting range again, though this time I recalled Xander back into his poké ball. The people inside, however, found it incredibly strange that I was taking my pokémon with me, and then even more so when I told them that I wanted to teach Lacey how to fire a gun.

That was until one man laughed and spoke up on my behalf. He – quite curiously – was dressed in a three-piece dark grey suit with a pink shirt, and had short black hair that he spiked up. His eyes were a strange shade of grey, and he seemed to be no older than mid-thirties.

"It's not that uncommon to teach a pokémon how to use a gun," he said in a rusty Johto burr. "I've known a few people to do so – hell I even taught my hitmonlee how to do so!" He laughed once more and winked at me, and then stared back at the man behind the counter. "If you're out in the wilds, and your only companion is a physical fighter, you're both pretty damn screwed if you come across something that can kill you all from a distance. If you're unlucky enough to drop your gun, who knows how likely you are to reach it before the creature kills you."

I blinked at him, unaware that people other than me actually ever considered the idea. Though what he said made sense. I found myself filing away what the man said without ever really meaning to.

I nodded. "Besides, it's a good way to keep dark-minded pokémon under control," I said, tapping Lacey briefly on the shoulder. "They all kill things instinctively, and some even do so for fun. What better way to keep one under control than by teaching it new methods it can use?" I noticed people giving me wide eyed stares, and felt like I'd maybe said something I shouldn't have. "It's not like I'm going to let her go around killing things willy-nilly, but she seems to enjoy the fact she knows something other nuzleaf don't, and has a new way to kill something if the situation's reduced to life-or-death."

That seemed to win the argument, and they let me into the rifle range behind with no problems after that. I found my way to a small booth set out for us, and placed a set of goggles over my own face, motioning for Lacey to do the same.

Thankfully I'd been loaned one of the simplest forms of a gun to help teach Lacey with. I first began by teaching her how to flick the safety on and off, and although she seemed slightly annoyed at having to just learn how to make it safe and unsafe, she paid attention nonetheless.

Afterwards I explained to her how to hold the weapon, and made her put on the earmuffs before I fired it, hitting the target on the far side in its shoulder. She looked at me, nodded, and then tried to copy my stance. I shook my head at her and explained that she had to find a way that was comfortable for her to hold the gun, rather than copying what she'd seen. It took a moment, but when she was ready, she looked set to fire the gun.

When she did however, the bullet missed the target completely – which wasn't that surprising, considering everything – and she shrieked and dropped the still-smoking gun, cradling her wrist in pain.

I realised by those actions alone that nuzleaf had extremely weak wrists until the leaves fully grew out.

Atop of that, I also discovered that Lacey was left-handed.

She hissed at the gun, still cradling her wrist, and looked at me in obvious confusion. I picked up the gun and flipped the safety back on, and gave her a short shrug. "I didn't know you had weak wrists," I confessed. I pulled a face as I placed my hands on my hips and thought about it. "Obviously you need to strengthen them a bit to deal with the recoil, otherwise you're going to end up shattering your wrist bones."

She pulled a face at me and muttered something unintelligible. I grunted in confusion, and she lifted her arms up and shifted her eyes to her wrists, and then shrugged as if to say 'what do I do?'

I pulled a face and rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm not totally sure to be honest," I admitted to her. "But I'll find out what I can and help you. You kept up your side of the bargain up; I'll work on keeping up mine."

She folded her arms and nodded, though I could see the disappointment on her face. A moment later I saw her eyes glance down to the gun still in my hands, and then up to my face and towards the target at the end of the range again.

It took a moment, but eventually I cottoned on. "You want me to take a few shots?" I gathered. She growled a small reply, and I nodded and motioned for her to stand aside as I took my place. I waited until she placed on her goggles and earmuffs, and was a safe enough distance away, I aimed and squeezed off six rounds at the target.

Once I was done, I motioned for her to come a little closer, and she stood beside me, arms folded smugly as she glanced at the target. Four shots had hit it's torso – three around the heart, and one in it's stomach. Another shot had pierced the target's head, though one had missed the head by an inch. She took it all in and grunted something like a laugh as I moved the goggles onto my head.

"What?" I questioned defensively. "It's only in the movies that people are really likely to nail a target six out of six times in the face. I think the fact I only missed once is still pretty damn decent."

She laughed once more, and her eyes shot down to the holster on my leg, and then to the dogtags I wore around my neck.

"Yeah, I used to be a soldier," I said, catching onto what she was implying. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to be a perfect shot." I laughed and placed the gun down on the counter and switched the safety on. "That only happens with perfect characters in fiction, or people that have trained religiously for years of their lives. I'm neither."

Lacey simply rolled her eyes at me, disputing my claims.

"You're just jealous," I grunted, taking pleasure in the fact that I was right. She huffed once more, and I let the humour drop from the conversation. "Come on," I said to her, tapping her shoulder lightly. "We'll go out of the town's limits and get some training drills in. There's a few things I need to explain to you while we're out there."

She didn't seem fully convinced, but went along with it regardless. If nothing else, I could convince her for certain I wasn't a normal trainer – though I felt with my luck, she'd merely just assume I was nothing more than a raving lunatic.

Of course, were the roles reversed, I wouldn't have been able to blame her.

* * *

It was little over an hour later that I managed to find a small area to the north of Mauville that was large and secluded enough for my pokémon to train in. I set Xander and Loki to theirs first, and found that once again I had to pry Erra away from my arm once more before I could get her to do anything.

Once such an action was finally achieved, I sat down with Lacey and had her sit opposite me, her eyes lit up in genuine intrigue and wonder. I think she thought I was going to teach her a new method of killing things, as both times previous I had pulled her aside to teach her to use toxic poisons that she could naturally control, and then again to use a gun.

So instead of teaching her how to kill something, I more or less convinced her that I was crazy.

"There's a few things you need to know," I told her, keeping my voice low, paranoid someone was listening. "As you've probably guessed, I'm not exactly a normal sort of trainer. There's a reason for that," I added quickly as I saw her mouth crawl into a smirk. "I'm from the future."

Her reaction was exactly what I expected. She folded her arms across her chest and laughed at me, somewhat more than a snigger and yet less than a belly laugh.

"I can understand how ridiculous that sounds," I admitted as she stopped to wipe a small tear away from an eye. "But it's honestly true. I was born sixty-three years from now, and got warped back into this time in order to stop my future from ever happening."

It seemed to set her off again. I couldn't blame her – voicing the words aloud made it sound like I was the main character of a badly written film. I hated that my story was so unbelievable when there were various texts circling the world about how a celebi could travel through time, and even sometimes take someone or something with it. Hell, I was in a region where they believed there was a creature that would wake up every thousand years and grant wishes for a week. Why couldn't they believe time-travel was capable with a pokémon?

"I'm serious," I said, adamant in my cause. "I'm not making this sort of shit up – if I was, I'm lacking a considerable amount of imagination in order to make that sort of story up! I'd probably end up using some silly excuse like I was suffering from amnesia."

Lacey seemed to snigger at that, and it did nothing to stop me feeling stupid about my tale.

"_Seriously_," I growled at her. "It was a celebi that warped me back in time and made me do all this. You've lived in a forest, there had to be psychics in there. There had to be a celebi or something that visited. You must have heard something!"

She looked at me and tilted her head slightly. She seemed to consider it all a moment before something seemed to light up in her eyes. All of a sudden she pushed herself to her feet, whispered something and of all things, tapped me on the head.

I blinked, flabbergasted. She growled something as she walked off and began running back and forth between two fixed points, leaving me alone to watch as she ran her drills by her own free will.

I couldn't make sense of it. It seemed almost like... she _pitied_ me.

That couldn't be right. In the space of a month, I'd gone from her hating me and wanting to let me die, to her looking out other me as a motherly figure, and now I had her _pitying_ me of all things. It meant that either she knew exactly what I was talking about, and knew something that I didn't know myself yet. Or more likely, it meant that she didn't believe a word I said, and instead thought I was nothing more than a nutcase, lost in my own crazy world.

It was truly strange, and I spent the next few days just debilitating it in my head. Over the course of the days I would occasionally try to find out what provoked Lacey's actions, but each time she would shake her head with the same pitying expression and then turned to do something else.

Even Xander and Loki wouldn't help me get the answers out of her. Loki would just cackle and chatter something I couldn't understand before skulking off, whereas Xander would simply croak and shake his stubby head at me.

Whatever the reasons, I wasn't able to get them out of my pokémon.

Instead I found myself just training them for a few solid days, whether against other trainers, against wild pokémon or even just in their drills. Though my paranoia seemed to be escalating every time I felt slightly hot or slightly cold, and every time such a thing happened, I would release Lacey if she wasn't by my side already, and end up near enough cowering behind her.

I slowly began to realise that if she thought I was crazy, my behaviour wasn't exactly helping things.

About an hour before my gym battle, I found myself sat nearby the gym with my pokémon all out around me in a local park, and I was mentally going over what I could do. I knew that the gym specialised in electric types, given the shear abundance of them around town, and most notably, in the gym. I figured Lacey could resist it, Erra too, yet Loki and Xander were both less resistant to such elements.

I pulled a face and considered the thunderstone I still had in my bag. I figured that having it around should have exposed my pokémon to the radiation, and maybe in some way that prevented them from receiving electrical shocks or the like. It made me remember the fire stones, and just what they were doing to Loki. He'd eaten at least three of them as far as I could remember, and yet I hadn't seen a change in him, physically or otherwise.

I pried the thunderstone out of my bag and considered it as I turned it round in my hands. I could feel small sparks that felt like static coming off it, each and every one making my fingers twitch. I remembered how the fire stones gave off heat, and how Loki reacted when he consumed them. If thunderstones were capable of giving off electricity, fire stones heat, and as I'd seen from the water stones, they produced volumes of water, surely that meant they had to do something to pokémon.

I felt Erra buzzing on my arm more than I heard her. I could feel her wings beating more frantically as I continued to turn the stone in my hands, and felt her long, spindly legs begin to crawl down my arm, towards the stone.

"What are you doing?" I asked her as I swapped the stone to the other hand. I saw the greedy look in Loki's eyes I'd seen so many times before, though this time I saw it reflected in Erra's single orb.

I glanced down at Xander and saw that he was indifferent to it, and a brief look at Lacey told me she wasn't too bothered by it either.

"Do these do something else?" I asked her, still trying to move the stone away from Erra. "I mean, something aside from forcing evolution?"

She clicked her tongue at me, hissing something I couldn't understand. Instead I felt Erra's spindly legs crawling ever closer to me, and I tried to shake her away from the stone.

Instead she took flight, buzzing and flitting around us all. Small yellow sparks of electricity danced around her body, occasionally travelling up her wings and discharging harmlessly into the air.

"Erra, what's the fascination with this?" I asked her, attempting to move the stone from her sights.

Instead she buzzed once more, and with speed I didn't know she possessed, she raced forth and clamped herself down on my other arm. With nimble speed and precision she snatched the thunderstone from my hand, and flew out of my reach quickly afterwards, gnawing at the stone, even as it gave off small static charges.

Loki hissed and leapt after her, swiping madly at the air beneath her. I gathered that he was completely jealous, convinced that the stones were treats for him and him alone. He growled demonically and swiped at her again and again, even as she buzzed louder and louder.

Finally, when Erra had consumed the stone, her buzzing increased in volume. There was a bright, white flash of light, and I heard Loki shriek and dart back a couple of steps. As soon as the light cleared from my eyes, I saw the entire ground around Erra and where Loki stood scorched black, and more bright white sparks discharging from the flying creature.

I'd barely whispered a curse before my mind screamed at me to recall the pokémon into the safety of her ball. Thankfully my body seemed to be working leagues ahead of my mind, and she disappeared in bright red light before my very eyes.

"Eesh," I groaned, rolling my eyes and flopping back down on the bench. "Obviously they do something then," I whispered, unable to rip my eyes away from the blackened earth. Xander croaked once and drew me back to the real world, where I found my remaining three pokémon staring at me, and a few random strangers in the park giving me strange, fearful and distrusting looks.

I grunted a half-arsed sound at the people and recalled Xander and Loki back into their balls. I nodded at Lacey, and slowly she returned the gesture, unable to rip her own eyes away from the scorched earth. I got the feeling that she wanted to find out how to get the sort of power that Erra had just displayed. I didn't know whether or not she would be able to attain such power, though I knew it definitely wasn't a good idea.

Instead I just opted to head towards the gym, and hope that the leader could explain a few things to me.

* * *

The Mauville gym was extremely similar in design compared to the three others I had seen, though it had small windmills circling on the roof, and water wheels that obviously helped to generate electricity for the gym.

Inside there was a large room functioning as the reception, and a variety of people walked around with all varieties of electrical pokémon following around with them.

I walked up to the desk and announced myself to the receptionist, who looked at me with a conflicted frown.

"I'm sorry, but Leader Wattson is ill today," she explained, folding her hands over each other on the desk. "Unfortunately, he suffers from the risks that all trainers do. During his training yesterday, his electivire managed to break his arm. It was on the advice of the doctors that he rests for at least a week."

I felt my stomach fall and then flip. If he was ill, who was I meant to fight for the badge? Who would I convince of my strength so that when the time came – if it did – that I could call on them for backup?

The woman seemed to have an idea towards my inner plight as she offered a sympathetic smile. "We've got plenty of gym trainers on hand to cover for him, however," she explained diplomatically. "It's one of the reasons why the gym employs them, as among other responsibilities, they can cover for the leader in times when he or she is absent."

She smiled once more and spun around in her chair, facing the computer once more. "I can get you a battle with one of our trainers today, at the same time of your current appointment."

I debated it for a moment, even as Lacey croaked something and tried to nudge me forwards. It was obvious she wanted me to go for it, but I wasn't sure whether or not I should. I pulled a face and leant on the desk slightly. "If I fought a league trainer and earned the badge that way... would there be any... urm, like negatives towards that?" I groaned at the stupidity of my words and scratched my head. "What I mean is... say if I qualified for the league, and one of my badges was this one, earned by a gym trainer. Would that be looked upon as less?"

The receptionist smiled and brushed blonde hair from the black vest she wore. "It's amazing how little we actually get asked that question. Officially, no, you're not going to be looked down upon for getting a gym badge from a gym trainer, rather than a leader. On the other hand, other trainers may look down upon you, especially if they earned all their badges from the leaders."

It gave me something to consider. Officially, I wouldn't be seen as any less. Yet, unofficially, and between other trainers, I'd be seen as less just because I didn't beat the strongest trainer in a town. It meant if I ever needed to convince people to do something, I probably wouldn't have much of an influence as I could have otherwise.

In my mind, I needed the power to convince everyone. I knew I wouldn't be able to unless I could prove that I was powerful enough to swing things.

If nothing else, it was one of the few things that I predicted that actually turned out to be right, even if it was in a way I didn't expect.

"I'll wait until the gym leader's better again," I decided. "Though, can I still see a gym trainer anyway? I've got a few questions to ask about my magnemite – she's acting a bit strange."

The woman nodded and told me one would be along in a few minutes to talk to me.

True to her word, not two minutes later a brown haired man a few years older than me turned up and introduced himself as Erik. He led me into an office and sat down on the chair, gesturing for me to sit opposite. When I did he plastered on a grin and spun around in his chair with slight childish amusement. "So how can I help you?"

I felt myself sigh and realised how awkward my conversation was going to be. Beside me, Lacey croaked in distaste, annoyed that I was talking to someone, rather than fighting a battle against gym pokémon.

"My magnemite's acting a little strange," I confessed, folding my arms and gripping them apprehensively. "She's always been a bit clingy as long as I've known her – she's always latching onto one of us and refusing to move much."

Erik laughed and placed his hands behind his head. "Some pokémon are just like that. Some are clingy, some are loners. Some have even been known to treat their trainers as their children, and will attack anything that means them harm without mercy.

I nodded, understanding the information and filing it away. "That's not the extent of it though," I revealed, and subconsciously gripped my arms tighter. "I had a thunderstone earlier, and I was wondering what to do with it. Though Erra – my magnemite – she was out and managed to snatch it from me. Before her electricity wasn't ever much more than little yellow sparks or bolts, yet after that, she managed to make a fuck-off big blast that flashed bright white light and scorched the earth black around her."

The man nodded, placed a fist under his chin as he leant on the desk and grinned. "So you've found the secrets of the elemental stones," he said dramatically.

I arched an eyebrow at him, wondering why he used such a tone. "So what's this big secret?" I asked, leaning forwards in interest.

"There's hidden powers within each of the elemental stones," he explained to me. "Certain ones around certain pokémon, like your nuzleaf for instance-" he elaborated, gesturing towards Lacey, "-will make the pokémon evolve faster than it usually would. Though some people are finding out that the stones have other effects – when their ground up and fed to a pokémon, or even just fed to a pokémon, the pokémon can start to adjust to the element the stone possesses. If they're the same – like a fire pokémon consuming a fire stone – then said pokémon will find its abilities with its element have increased exponentially.

"What you've described sounds like an attack commonly known as thunder," he explained to me, crossing his own arms. "Usually it takes most electric pokémon, let alone any others, a lot of training to use and master it without using a thunderstone to boost their abilities. Though one's not going to be enough to make a pokémon have complete control – I can only guess and say it's given your pokémon a big power boost for some time."

I nodded. It made sense. If a fire pokémon ate charcoal, that would surely mean it's fire would increase in heat and power. If it ate a stone that gave off heat, as well as containing a fire within, surely that meant it would start producing much more potent flames.

Though one thing bugged me; "My sableye's ate at least three fire stones so far though, and I haven't seen any sort of change within him."

The man nodded and rubbed his chin. "Some pokémon don't adapt as well as others. Sableye can't naturally control flames, and take a lot of specialist training to even begin to use them effectively. Because of that, it can take a lot more than three to make your pokémon learn any fiery abilities."

I nodded along with his explanation. "Does the fact that I'm adjusted to ice pokémon delay that in anyway?" I asked him, hopeful he could help.

"It can do," he informed me. "Certain elements oppose each other. Like how it's easier to teach a fire pokémon fire attacks if you're adapted to fire, it can be harder to teach them to the opposite. For anyone that's electrically adapted, we find teaching our pokémon earth-based attacks to be extremely hard and complicated."

That answered a lot. Loki wasn't doing well with using the radiation from fire stones because I was adjusted to cold. I'd seen Xander learn how to use mist in record time – he'd mastered it already, and Lacey was still learning how to fully use her toxic poisoning technique. I began to wonder once more if my theories of myself being dark adapted too were true, though wanted to know how I could prove or disprove it. I hadn't tried to teach my pokémon any sort of insect or martial arts based moves, so couldn't establish based on that.

I groaned mentally and decided it was a debate for another day. Eric told me that all I needed for Erra to do was to burn off a bit of extra energy, and my best bet was to either have her latch onto the power lines around the city and let her deposit her excess electricity into them, as they had security measures in place to ensure wild pokémon couldn't overload them, or to have her discharge it all into a grounded pokémon.

I thanked him for all his help and set off out of the gym, already deciding what option to head for. I walked towards a nearby exit of the town and let Erra out, and made sure to instruct her to latch onto the power lines above us. She buzzed around me, discharging white static once again, though Lacey decided to jump in as translator when it was obvious my point wasn't coming across.

I watched as Erra flew up above us and latched onto the power lines, and I saw her light up briefly with brilliant electrical light. My heart froze at the sight, though I felt it beat anew as she detached herself from the power cables and buzzed around happily once more.

I watched her with a small smile on my face as she flew down to us again and landed once more on Lacey. The nuzleaf shrieked as stored up electrical energy discharged randomly into her, and I was just thankful Erra decided to latch onto her and not me. Not doubt if I received that shock, I would have been left fried and extra crispy on the floor.

Even though there was no gym battle, I felt that what I learnt made up for it, and wasn't sure if I would have been able to get such information if the gym leader was around, or even if I'd been able to win in a battle against the gym trainer. I decided it would have to be something I'd try again another time, just like the battle in Slateport. In the mean time, I needed to move on to the next town and figure out what I was going to do next.

At least, that was the original plan, until my phone went off. I half expected it to be Mia, laughing still about how she had stolen my shoelaces, and that she'd probably left them dangling from a branch that hung over the peak cliff edge of Mount Chimney or something equally as ridiculous.

Instead it was Adryan, and I found that a smile crept onto my face as I read it, and found that he'd finally left the Origin Cluster, and was on the way towards civilisation again. I told him that I was in Mauville, and that I could wait another day or two for him to turn up.

Imagine my surprise when he teleported in.

With a demon, no less.

Needless to say, the results weren't that pretty.


	25. Hidden Truths

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Hidden Truths

* * *

**

_A little learning is a dangerous thing ~ Alexander Pope._

**-O-O-O-**

"_Somewhere along the line, everything we've ever said is called into question. Simple things we might have said without realising can change people's opinions of us in ways we could never imagine. The only problem is that humans can't help but lie – some more than others. Whether it's to protect someone, to cover something up, or even to make your own life more interesting, everyone will lie at one point in their life._

_There's two real problems with this: keeping track of those lies, and having to deal with the shitstorm when they're revealed."_

- Edgar Verite, Mayor of Lavaridge, 2999-3003, 3007-3011. _(May 4__th__, 3007)_

**-O-O-O-**

I think I lost a lot of man-points when Adryan showed up with the demon.

They appeared outside the pokémon centre in a flash of blue light, instantly drawing a crowd of people's attention. After the initial shock wore off, people didn't seem to mind it all that much, and they treated it almost as if it were an everyday occurrence for people to warp into town with a pokémon.

I however, reacted completely differently. I leapt backwards a good few feet, alarmed and ready to hit something. Lacey's attention was rapt on the source of my shock immediately, and Erra flitted around us both, buzzing maniacally.

Though when I saw Ayd's demon, I couldn't help but want to run away screaming in the other direction. Instead I only managed to scream, leap backwards and trip over Lacey, knocking us both to the floor. She hissed and punched me in the gut reflexively, knocking the wind out of me completely. Erra thought it was all a big game, and decided to buzz around us both, happily discharging random shocks into the air.

I managed to squint past Lacey's head to see Adryan cackling at us all. He looked a lot more tired than he did when I saw him last, and a little bit thinner. His hair was just a little longer, and there were various rips and dirt marks over his clothes.

He was meant to be going into the harshest place in the entire country, yet I was fairly certain I was the one who looked like I had been to hell and back, not him.

"Dude!" he yelled between laughs and waved at me. He stepped up to me with a big grin and held a hand out to help me up. "How goes it?" he asked with a grin and a wink.

I went to answer him, only to scream once more as his demon floated along beside him. I rolled backwards in a flurry of arms and legs, still tangled up with Lacey, and barely managed to get out a strangled, "Get... it away!"

"Huh?" Adryan grunted with a raised eyebrow, snatching his hand back as if I'd offended him.

"Demon," I breathed, panicking and still trying to escape. Ayd looked extremely confused for a moment, though seemed to pick up what I meant when Lacey understood my strangled gasps. She leapt to her feet and leapt at Ayd's demon, hissing wildly and going straight for the horn on the demon's chest.

It was only the demon's trained reflexes that allowed it to warp away from her in time. I heard Adryan scream at me to get my pokémon under control, but I couldn't bear to face it. Instead I curled up into a foetal position, hugging myself and continually whispering, "Get it away."

He grunted something and looked to his pokémon, then to mine, and again to me. Finally he seemed to twig and recalled his demon in a flash of light, and I heard Lacey calm down.

Erra was still buzzing around us both, chasing after Lacey as if it were all a big game. I was still shaking and rocking myself back and forth, and it was Lacey that decided to check if I was alright.

She hissed once more as Adryan tried to move towards me, and I barely managed to stop her from attacking him. She backed off disdainfully, obviously not fully convinced he was safe, given the way I reacted to the demon in his possession. Erra settled down in Lacey's hair, and it seemed as if the dark pokémon was used to her presence and didn't seem to mind her nestled in there.

"Well I hope that I don't look bad enough to warrant that reaction," Adryan quipped as once again he held a hand out for me. "I mean, I know I haven't been able to wash in a few days, but that's a bit overboard."

A managed to give him a small smile as I glanced around, checking for any signs of his demon. When I was sure it wasn't there anymore, I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet, praying in vain that my reaction would be ignored.

He gave me a moment, his hand against my shoulder to steady me as I continued to wobble on my feet. "You alright?" he asked, concerned, and waited for me to nod. "What was that about?" he asked carefully.

I took a deep breath and attempted to steady myself. Lacey grunted and stepped to my side, glaring daggers at Ayd. I placed my own hand on her shoulder and gave her a small smile, letting her know it was okay.

"I'm not alright," I admitted, and felt a lump build in my throat. "But can we not talk about it?"

He looked at me, pulled a face and then nodded reluctantly. "Alright," he agreed, and swipe his glasses from his face. As he cleaned them, he squinted at me. "So you mind coming with to the pokémon centre? I've gotta get my guys healed, and then I'm going to swap them round once more."

I nodded and managed a weak grin. "Like I said when I texted you; I wanted to meet up again. I don't mind hanging out with you whilst you're going through mundane tasks."

Because after all, if nothing else, it managed to distract me from my situation. I didn't understand why, but Adryan always managed to bring a smile onto my face with his constant upbeat attitude, and somehow, it made me forget the monumental nature of my task.

"Awesome," he said with a grin. "Come on, let's get some food afterwards too. I don't know about you, but I'm starved."

I grinned as his stomach seemed to grumble in agreement. "Sure," I agreed. "Just... do me a favour," I said, my voice dropping to no more than a whisper. "Can you... can you make sure... can you not have Willow out around me for a while?"

He pulled a face instantly at my question. After considering it a moment, he eventually nodded, slowly, before placing his glasses back in his face. "Fine. But you've got to tell me exactly why you're so freaked about them. I'm not going to keep her under lock and key if I have no idea what's going on."

I looked up at him and gave him a silent, reluctant nod. It was a fair trade, but I didn't want to have to relive the event again.

Though I knew that was going to be unlikely.

* * *

It was about an hour later when we decided to go out and get something to eat. Since I'd decided I wasn't going to leave Mauville for another day after my gym battle, if only so I could stay around town and get some extra training.

Seeing as I still had the room, I told Adryan to go up into it and have a shower. He seemed to love the idea, and dropped off his pokémon on the way. A little while later he came back down, made a few phone calls with the centre's vid-phones and then decided he was good to go.

"C'mon," he said as he began to walk ahead of me. "I know Mauville pretty well – there's a few great places around here." He patted his stomach and grinned. "I want pizza."

I snorted. "Clearly your time in the Cluster hasn't made you any less weird."

My comment made him laugh and nudge me in the side. "There's never a chance of that happening. I like being weird. I'm more fun this way."

I laughed and rolled my eyes at once. "Keep telling yourself that. So how was the Cluster?"

"Scary, weird, and just downright creepy. Just like my ex." He laughed once more and nodded for us to take a right turn down the road. "We got out in one piece, and that's more than I first thought would happen. There was a time where Hale froze a swarm of golbat solid, and another when Ward got stuck in a pothole none of us had seen." He sighed and placed his hands behind his head. "To tell the truth, there's been no amazing stories or incidents whilst I've been in there. It hasn't been boring, but it hasn't been something to write home about either. I've just been surviving." He shrugged and glanced down to me. "So how've you been?"

_I came across a murderous Elite, captured a serial killer of a pokémon, nearly got raped and murdered by two demons, and I've got a dead makuhita stalking me._

"Pretty boring really," I said with a shrug. I tapped the poké balls on my bandolier as I said, "I caught a nuzleaf and a magnemite – the ones you saw earlier. Aside from that, nothing's happened."

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "If you say so," he said, and turned to look away from me. "Though it's obviously a bit more than nothing if you freaked out by seeing Willow."

I short him a dark look and glanced to the floor. "I just don't like gardevoir," I whispered darkly. I sighed when Ayd shrugged and carried on walking in silence and ignored my pleas to talk about something else. "Some things happened, but I don't wanna talk about them."

"Then let's talk about something else," he decided, full of life again. "So what would you do if there was a zombie apocalypse?"

I snorted at how ridiculously random it was. I didn't want to tell him my world was something like a horror film – where people and pokémon would kill you and eat you without a care in the world.

"Go crazy or just have fun murdering zombies," I said, playing along with his game. "How about you?"

He shrugged, grinned, and then shrugged again. "I dunno. I'd probably hide out in a big castle, make sure I had a massive catapult, and then entertain myself by tying up zombies, placing them on the catapult and then shooting them off into the distance."

I burst out laughing at the mental image it provided. "You're insane," I told him.

"Don't you know it," he said with a grin, placing his hands behind his head. "I've been relying on my madcap imagination a lot while I've been in the cluster – when your whole team passes out through over-exertion and you're left in such a place on your own, if you don't keep your mind occupied, you'll end up going insane. Or moreso in my case."

It was pretty true, I realised as I thought about it. Though the weight of his words suddenly had impact and I stared at him as I asked, "Your whole team was knocked out?"

"Yup," he grunted. "It would be more amazing if I managed to get through the Cluster without any of them succumbing to their injuries and passing out at the very least. It's not like a videogame, where if all your team passes out you magically warp back to a pokémon centre, you know?" He laughed at his own words and dropped his arms, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "If they all pass out, you're left having to carry on until one of them has rested enough to come back out again. Usually it can be anything from a few hours to a few days."

He spoke the truth, but, "You're _you_ though," I pointed out with a hint of incredulity. "It's amazing you manage to tie your shoelaces sometimes, let alone live a few hours on your own in the Cluster."

"Hey!" he protested and nudged me in the side. "I _can_ survive on my own, thank you very much. You might think I'm a complete goon, but I've managed to travel and live for _ten_ years. Did you honestly think I'd be that clueless that I'd end up poking a feral salamence or something with a stick?"

I grinned. "No, but I think you might just do it for the hell of it."

He laughed. "Never say never. Though _maybe_ not a wild one. I might just train one and then continually poke it with a stick at random times." He laughed once more and finally showed me the restaurant he decided to lead me to. It was a little place that served pizzas, and I was truly amazed that we had enough money to pay for all the food that us and our pokémon ate. Since Ayd had placed all his pokémon in the centre but Irenui, the dragoness joined us for our meal. It meant that we had to sit outside, and that she had to keep her wings incredibly still after she'd managed to spread sand over other people's food and they'd kicked up a fuss about it.

In return, I got Loki to sneak the spiciest sauces possible onto their food. It went without notice until they started to eat it, and then all hell broke loose as they complained to the managers, refusing to pay because they'd made it wrong.

While they were arguing, we also made off with their pizza. Despite the sheer spice, it was still amazingly nice.

Better still, it was free.

More than that, an hour later, Ayd was still fanning his tongue in some desperate attempt to cool it down.

"I _did_ warn you," I told him.

"Bu' i' tathted nithe," he protested, pulling his tongue our further and still fanning it. "Worth i'," he eventually decided as he folded his arms, trying his best to ignore the tears springing from the corners of his eyes.

Loki cackled at him as he crawled up my arm, resting happily on my shoulder. I grinned at him and reached over to scratch his head. "Next time, don't eat anything that Loki's been near."

At the mention of his name, Loki hissed something and shifted about, digging his claws further into my back and neck, finally settling with his claws dug in the straps and material of my backpack. He looked at me and then at Ayd before he grunted something in response. Regardless I nodded at him and gave him a smile. "The only thing you could do that would be worse would be to let Lacey prepare your food."

Ayd blinked at me, not understanding the reference. "What do you mean?"

Loki hissed at me as he pulled on my ear, chastising me instantly. I winced and nodded, hushing him as quickly as I could. "Urm, nothing really," I lied quickly, hoping I wouldn't give the game away. "She just seems to like spicing up people's food and drink, if not lacing it with something worse."

Adryan chuckled at the thought of it. "So I take it you found this out the hard way?"

I thought back to the way I met her, and then again to when I tried to bond with her on the boat to Dewford. "You could say that," I told him. "Though I got her back by spiking her food with laxatives."

He burst out laughing again and went to wipe a tear from his eye. "Jeez, remind me never to get on your bad side. I _really_ don't want to be dealing with anything like the runs in the places I train in." He shook his head and pulled a fact at the thought. "Anyway, on the topic of training, we should head east of Mauville. You remember me telling you about Chris?"

I stared at him a moment, mind blank before it finally clicked. "The girl you travelled with before?"

"That's her," he confirmed. "She lives nearby here, and she's also the pokémon breeder I mentioned to you a while ago. She knows a few things about training pokémon, and I reckon the pokémon she's been holding for me should be old enough for me to collect now."

"'Old enough'?" I reiterated, confused. "I thought pokémon could battle no matter their age."

He snorted at me, one eyebrow raised higher than the other. "Do you ever really think before you ask these questions? Most pokémon are blind or the like when they first hatch from eggs – it takes about nine weeks for them to be able to see and live without being dependent on their mothers or the breeder that's raising them." He grunted with a shrug and shook his head. "I don't understand it well enough to tell you, to be honest. Ask Chris about it; she'll be able to tell you. All I know is that most are like that, though some can be independent a lot sooner."

I nodded and folded my arms. "I guess pokémon training's even _more_ complicated than I first thought," I groaned. In my ear, Loki chattered as if agreeing and flashed me a grin lined with razor-sharp teeth.

"_You_ complicate things more than normal anyway," I told him, and watched as his ears drooped a little. The action made me laugh, and he seemed content with entertaining himself by attempting to slyly rummage through my pack and find more evolutionary stones he seemed to think were his treats. As long as he didn't start throwing things here, there and everywhere, I decided to leave him be to have some fun.

"I see he's still insane," Ayd observed as he glanced at the trickster on my shoulder. "Though good to see you've got him under control." He reached forwards to prod the creature on the skull, though instantly Loki's ears peeled back and his fangs bared as a deep hiss leapt from his throat. Ayd immediately recoiled, holding his hand close to his chest. "And I see that he's still as fond of me as ever."

I grinned and petted Loki on the head. "He's just protective. He likes to be the one that invades someone else's personal space, not the other way round." I turned away and glanced out towards the landscape, past the continual stretches of open grass and dirt roads. I could see a good distance across the vast clearing, and all around us there were a number of pokémon making their way through the grass, as well as a seldom trainer with their pokémon.

"So where are we going?" I asked, straining myself to see some sort of building anywhere nearby.

"About another hour that way," Ayd said as he pointed towards two o'clock. "Chris always wanted to live in the middle of nowhere," he reflected with a snort. "She sure as hell got what she wanted. Cost her a pretty penny to secure all the land too."

I stared at him, considering it. I'd never once before pictured people paying money for large quantities of land, I'd always naively assumed that as long as they had the resources to remove and keep their location safe from pokémon, they were entitled to it. After living so long in a ruined, dilapidated world, and then near-enough always camping out in the wilds, I had admittedly, developed an idealistic view of the world. I realised then how stupid that was, and that humans and pokémon both always sought to claim territory of their own. The only difference was that humans fought over territory through bureaucracy, rather than inherent abilities.

"How much did it cost her?" I asked.

Ayd's response was a low whistle. "A lot. A _hell_ of a lot. She's gonna be paying off her mortgage 'til she's at least sixty, regardless of how much money she's made or will make."

I nodded, though couldn't push my brain past one stumbling block. "What's a mortgage?"

He looked at me, blinked, and then just stared, wide-eyed. "You're kidding, right?"

I felt my cheeks heat up in indignation. I'd never had to worry about owning my own house or land before, why the hell would I know anything about it?

"No," I said, somewhat sheepishly. Loki cackled in my ear, and I wondered just how much he understood of our conversation. "Have you not realised the holes in my world-knowledge."

"I didn't think it was _that_ bad," he muttered, and I felt myself sag at his words. Instantly he caught himself and offered as many apologies as he could, swearing he didn't mean it the way I took it. "I meant I thought that you were just oblivious towards anything pokémon related... and I think I'll stop talking about now," he drawled, catching sight of me undoubtedly looking rather annoyed. "A mortgage is just basically a big loan the banks give you so you can afford to build or buy a house. It's usually based on how much income you get each year, and you pay it off little-by-little.

"They screw you over though," he added with a frown. "Small print is that even if you get enough money to pay it off in full, you still have to carry on paying it little by little. I mean, you get fined if you pay it off early."

I scrunched my face in confusion. "That's just stupid."

Ayd shrugged. "It's what governments are like: they're all just out to get as much money out of you as possible. Just you wait, when you stop travelling, you've got it all to look forward to."

I snorted. "I doubt that. If I want my own house, I'll just somehow get Loki to sneak into the government offices and hurry up everything I need. That or I'll just build one with pokémon-power and have a massive houndoom standing guard and stopping people from coming too near or complaining about it."

"You'll end up living in a cave," Adryan promised me. "A dark, smelly, damp cave, and you'll be sharing it with a few angry ursaring. And if you're really lucky, you'll have an insane cave-hobo to keep you company."

"I never said I wanted to live with you," I told him, folding my arms and keeping a straight face.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, grinning at my comment. "If anything, I'm going to be the one with the nice house, living in luxury, and you're going to be on a leash, tied to a post at the bottom of my garden.

I rolled my eyes. "I'd kill you off and assume your identity."

He laughed. "With that demonic creature sitting on your shoulder, I don't doubt you would." He turned away and smiled, just as Loki growled at him once more. "See, he proves my point. You mention it in jest, and already he's planning to carry out these ideas. Be careful with any sort of ghost or psychic. Your smallest thought or idea can be carried out by them as some strange act of wanting to please you."

I balked and glanced backwards towards Loki. He flashed me a razor-lined smile before digging into my backpack again, successfully managing to shake both my back and everything I was holding in the pack.

"You're joking, aren't you?" I asked Ayd, genuinely worried his words could be truthful. "They wouldn't really do that."

He just looked at me and smiled. "Pokémon are like people. Some will do anything to impress someone they care about."

* * *

When we finally reached Chris' house, I realised it was almost exactly the picture of a farm that I'd build up in my head. It was a small bungalow nearby a set of stables, and a large, old-brown, barnhouse was nearby. The entire area stretched out a good few miles, all sealed off with some sort of wire-mesh fences. A good number of pokémon were out in the grounds, and not one of them seemed all that bothered about our presence on what was undoubtedly their territory.

"All of those are Chris'," Ayd told me, gesturing out towards the ponyta, tauros, stantler and others that I couldn't identify grazing out in the landscape. "She trains each and every one of them well enough to be placid enough around people normally, though strong enough to attack if anyone threatens any of them."

I stared. "How good a trainer does someone have to be to become a breeder?"

"Pretty damn good," he said as we walked towards the door. "You've got to be able to look after and manage far more pokémon than the normal six a trainer carries on them. Most breeders usually have about fifty pokémon on their lands, and they look after each and every one of them. It helps that most breeders usually employ a few people to help them – Chris has got about three people on her payroll helping her day-to-day."

I sighed. "One more occupation that's ruled out for me. I don't think I have the patience or the trust in other people to have them working for me."

He rolled his eyes at me. "Says the guy with a team of four pokémon, carrying out his whims on command. It's just a good thing you've recalled your demonic urchin. I don't doubt he'd have fun scampering round the house, interfering with everything and anything."

"Surely your friend's got a few pokémon out and about, causing all sorts of mayhem anyway, right?" I asked, not sure why Loki himself would be a problem.

"Yeah, but their pokémon that happen to _live_ here. It'd be no different to you or him going into a wild pokémon's nest," he told me, and rang the doorbell before I had a chance to answer him.

As soon as the bell chimed, there were a chorus of barks, growls and yells from within the house. I heard two sets of claws race towards the door, and the telltale crackling of static behind the large oaken door. The creature behind it was yipping wildly at the door, and I could hear it scratch at the blockade between us and it.

A woman's voice told the creature to sit down calmly, and amazingly, the yips and static died immediately. The door opened and greeted us to the sight of a light brown-skinned woman with deep hazel eyes and a green bandana covering black hair that was sticking out in wild directions, with small pieces of hay here and there. She wore a short sleeved brown polo shirt and dark blue denim capris underneath a white apron smeared with mud, food and a few blobs of what might have been blood.

Though most notably was the fact that her left arm gleamed with a silver metallic light. It was completely artificial from above where her sleeve covered.

It took all of a second for recognition to flare in her eyes. "Ayd!" she exclaimed, and without warning wrapped herself around him. "How've you been? How was the Cluster?"

I blinked, surprised she knew that. For a moment I forgot that she had known him longer than me, and wondered why someone else knew of what he'd been up to lately. At my feet the yipping started up again, and I found an electrike puppy bouncing at my heels.

"Good, and shit-scary," Ayd said as I bent down and played with the puppy. It barked happily at me, bouncing around me and shooting small bolts of static around itself. "It went a lot better than Cerulean though, to be honest," he told her, and I saw the way that her face twisted at mention of the place. If I'd ever doubted Ayd's story of what happened before, her reaction proved it all to be true.

"At least I was prepared this time. Willow could sense most of the pokémon coming most of the time, and when she wasn't around, either Hale was noticing changes in the air, or Ward or Irenui could read the vibrations in the ground." He laughed and pulled himself away from her, rubbing at his right shoulder. "Of course, even the ones that did get the drop on us didn't hurt me as much as that damned arm of yours does."

She laughed and slapped his shoulder with her real arm. "Imagine how the ponyta or miltank feel when I've got to stick it in them to help them with their eggs. I can only imagine it's incredibly uncomfortable. And cold." As Ayd burst out laughing at her joke, she chuckled and turned to face me, sniggering to myself as I played with the electrike pup. "Ayd's friend I take it?" she asked, and waited until I nodded before she stuck her real hand towards me. "I'm Chris, nice to meet you."

I stood up and introduced myself back to her, and in my inattention towards it, the electrike decided to piss over my shoes before scampering off elsewhere.

I stared down at my shoes, and then glared after the creature. "I was just beginning to like it too."

Chris could only laugh. "Amanda owes me a drink then. She thought it wasn't possible to train a pup so early on to use the toilet outside."

Adryan laughed as I tried to shake small droplets of urine off my boots. "Does it pissing on shoes actually count as you winning?"

She smiled. "Well, since _technically_ he was outside, I happen to win."

"Just remind me not to leave anything of mine on the floor," I grumbled. "With my luck I'll find that it's left a little present behind."

"My pokémon _are_ house-trained; they know to go on the paper before they're taught to go outside." Chris told me, placing her hands on her hips. Her frown rapidly turned to a smile, and then a look of shock as her metallic arm shot to the side and punched the doorframe. "God damn it!" she cursed, glaring at the offending arm and flailing it madly. "It's _still_ defective! At this rate I'm going to end up punching someone in the face. Maybe even by accident. Anyway-" she looked at us both and stepped backwards. "Come in, make yourselves at home. I'll get the others to cover me for the rest of the day and we can catch up."

"Awesome," Ayd said as he stepped in the house with her.

I walked in after them, taking note of the amount of pictures lining the walls of her hallways. She was in almost each and every one of them, and they ranged from her and what were obviously her and her family and friends, to her and her pokémon, to even just friends, family or pokémon on their own.

I turned back around in time to see Chris give Adryan a look I couldn't quite understand. He seemed at a loss for a moment before suddenly he started shaking his head wildly, and I heard him laughing at something I'd obviously missed.

"Coming?" Ayd asked me as Chris wandered off to tell her employees to cover her. "I know she told us to make ourselves at home, but seriously, if you consider yourself comfortable in a hallway staring at picture's of a woman's life, that's just _slightly_ creepy."

I pulled a face at him, and then glanced back to the wall. "It's almost in order," I said. I pointed towards the right, and then slowly moved my arm towards the left, and towards the main part of the house itself. "It's like she's built them in reflection of her age, so you walk into the house, and the further in you get, the older she is in the pictures." I turned away and thought about it. "It's kinda neat, in a way. Like you're walking into a living timeline."

Ayd looked at me a moment and then laughed to himself. "Not two hours ago, you didn't know what a mortgage was. And now suddenly you seem to be evaluating interior design. And I thought _I_ was weird."

"I _have_ thought about how I'd like to have a house of my own, you do realise?" I informed him. "I can do that and not know the intricases of how much is needed. Like all the kids that dream of being pokémon trainers, then find out how much is actually involved."

Ayd grunted. "Poor excuse. I think you're just trying to disguise a hidden love for interior design." He laughed to himself and waved for me to follow him. "Now come on, I want to find Ripper."

Before he'd even finished his sentence, or I had taken a step forwards, the shadows themselves seemed to close around us both. They stretched from the walls, encompassing us both, and my relative calm only stayed intact until a single red eye loomed from the darkness. It flickered between us both and caused me to fall over screaming once again.

Adryan however, reacted completely differently. As I lay on the floor, hyperventilating and worrying that the cursed makuhita ghost was stalking me, Ayd smiled and bounced towards it.

"Ripper!" he exclaimed, and almost immediately, the shadows took shape. It was like a large, grey fog suddenly seeped into the hallway, and it took a strange shape between us both. It was like a head around the one, looming red eye, and a large swirling mass seemed to make up its main body. There were faint yellow markings across its body that seemed almost like a face painted in the fog. I could almost see the hallway behind it. It was corporeal enough, however, for it to hug Adryan and let out a horrible wailing sound that I would never have thought would be a happy sound.

"How've you been?" he asked the pokémon, and got another garbled, haunting scream as a response. "So I take it you've been learning well? I've never heard you speaking so well!"

I stared, wondering just what on earth he was on about. He was talking to the pokémon as if he could understand it, and yet, all I could hear was nothing more than some horrible screaming that I was sure should have only existed in nightmares.

It was a little bit more than slightly insane, and I made my way past them both whilst trying to intrude as little as humanly possible. I managed to squeeze past them both without intruding, and found myself stood in a small living room, once again with the small electrike playing nearby me.

"You're an evil little creature, you know that?" I told it. It looked up at me, barked happily and then scampered off elsewhere, most likely to ruin someone else's shoes.

I watched it leave the room, and moments later found myself awkwardly trying not to stare at Chris' fake arm as she came back into the room.

"Heya," she greeted me warmly. "You can sit down if you like – I'm not going to bite." She smiled and glanced towards the hallway. "Where'd Ayd disappear to?"

I pointed behind me. "He's still in there. His dusknoir showed up again, so they're catching up." I snorted to myself and sat down as neatly as I could on one of the couches. "He seems to think it can talk – all I can hear is some strange, horrible noise."

Chris clicked her tongue as she walked into the joining room, returning moments later with a tray holding a teapot and a few cups. "Shows how much you know," she said with a smile on her face. "Ghosts are some of the smartest creatures there are out there. You in think living for a few centuries they don't pick up a few tricks? Ghosts that are old or smart enough can learn to speak human speech."

I stared, open-mouthed and dumbfounded. "No way," I finally managed to grunt. "Why couldn't I understand it then?"

She smiled at me. "Another one of their tricks. They have some sort of targeted speech – just like how psychics can make sure they only share telepathic messages with certain individuals, ghosts can talk to certain people comprehensively, whilst others hear only noise."

I groaned and fell back into the chair. "Everything I learn about pokémon seems to make them all the more complicated."

"We're always learning about them," Chris told me. "Even the pokédex doesn't have fully up to date information on every small detail, and every few years, we learn something new about pokémon that we'd never known before. The more years you spend being a trainer, the more you'll learn about pokémon, if not only your own."

I chuckled. "I'm a long way off that. I've only been a trainer for just over three months. I've still got _ages_ until I learn even the basics." I shrugged. "It's how I know Ayd really. He found me within the first fortnight of me setting out, and he's been helping me along. Otherwise I'd probably still be staring at a lake wondering just how to get across on a lotad, or stuck suffering from whatever illnesses have been plaguing Oldale and Petalburg as of late."

"So that's how you know him," she said whilst pouring tea into the cups. "I thought..." she glanced up at me, and then back down to the tray beneath her. "Actually, never mind."

I leant forwards, confused and intrigued. "You thought what?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. My first guess was that you were using him to somehow get a discount for a baby pokémon... but given how little you actually know of them, I'd guess not."

"Uh, thanks. I think?" I mumbled, scratching my cheek, completely lost. All I'd managed to gather about her was that she had a sense of humour and an upbeat look on life, despite her obvious injury, and she seemed to be immensely protective of her friends. It was a pretty accurate evaluation, though I think she was always a little paranoid of people and preferred pokémon to them. After all, if a pokémon didn't like you, it was instantly obvious. People were always cocooning themselves in layers of fakery and self-interest, after all.

Awkward silence set in, and I found myself asking the first question that came to mind to alleviate it. "So what's it like being a breeder then? Is it hard?"

She shot me a coy grin as she handed me a mug of tea. "I'll ignore the obvious innuendo in that. It's hard," she related as she leant back into her chair, and to my amazement, began to undo the straps holding her artificial arm in place. "But it's worth it at the end of the day. In a perverse way, selectively breeding some pokémon for specific traits is actually quite fun – or at least, the planning is. You sit there and theorise that if you breed pokémon X with pokémon Y, you'll get pokémon Z with certain qualities." She snorted. "In reality, you almost always end up with a surprise."

"Yup: being a pokémon breeder is definitely not for me," I muttered, stirring sugar into my tea. I caught sight of Chris looking up at me from her arm and tried to keep my face from twisting into a horrible grimace. "Every surprise I've gotten so far from pokémon tends to be something that didn't go down very well."

Her arm fell into her waiting hand, and with a relieved sigh she placed it down on the couch next to her and rubbed the stump it left. "That's a relief," she whispered, scratching at what was left of her arm. "It helps so much on a daily basis, but damn does it make my stump sweaty and itchy." Thankfully she ignored, or didn't ask anything more about my loathing for pokémon-based surprises, and instead looked towards the door to the room, where Ayd's voice could be heard coming towards us.

Then there was a loud crunching sound, followed by Ayd yelping and something smashing on the floor. Almost instantly we heard him curse, and I saw Chris's cheeks darken in barely suppressed anger.

"Sorry!" he yelled into the room, and his dusknoir floated through the wall, circling ominously around Chris. I stared at it, distrusting the giant ghost, and felt my spine shiver when it's single red eye fixed on me. My breath caught, and I felt something so very wrong going on under its stare. Everything went cold and seemed to stop around me, and I felt the pokémon analysing me, scrutinising everything about me. Then suddenly warmth returned to the room around me and it looked away, floating out towards what I assumed would have been the stables.

Then sound seemed to explode back into the room, and I caught myself in time to see Ayd walk into the room, and Chris throw something at him.

"God damn it Adryan!" she yelled, fuming and managing to look immensely scary, despite the fact she was missing an arm. I stared at it a moment, and then caught the artificial limb on the ground, not a foot away from Ayd. It took me no time to figure out what she'd thrown at him in her anger: her _arm_.

She'd thrown her freaking _fake arm_ at him in her rage! Immediately I decided that she was a woman I didn't want to anger.

Ayd, at least, seemed to share some of my reaction to it. "Your _arm_?" he exclaimed, flailing his own arms madly. "You threw your _arm_ at me? Do you have any idea that would hurt if it had hit me? Are you _trying_ to kill me woman? I broke a picture frame, and you try and break my damn _face!_"

To my surprise, she simply smiled victoriously. "It'll teach you not to touch things in my house. At least this time you didn't break a toilet."

I burst out laughing as Ayd floundered for a comeback. "A toilet?" I breathed, holding my gut. "How did you manage that?"

He flushed bright crimson and folded his arms. "I couldn't get signal on my phone. I stood on it, trying to get some."

I wasn't alone in not believing his excuse. "Whatever you say," Chris said, unable to keep a straight face. "I think it was a case of explosive diarrhoea. That or you're just a fat bastard, and have a magical trench coat that hides it all."

He rolled his eyes. "I was looking for signal," he repeated indignantly. "Anyway-" he bent down and picked her artificial arm back up, and handed it back to her. "Where'd you learn to throw like that? Last time I saw, you threw like a girl."

She laughed and placed the arm beside her as she sat back down. "_I _throw like a girl?" She looked at me and pointed her thumb to her right as Ayd sat down next to her. "Have you seen the way this guy throws _anything_? I've seen five year old girls that look manlier that he does."

Ayd folded his arms and leant back into the couch. "Whatever. I blame it all on your Hulk-arm."

She spun around and smacked him on his shoulder. "I have _one_ arm, remember? I can't help it if doing everything with one arm makes it bigger. What's your reason for having one arm bigger than the other then, hm?"

The look on his face was priceless, and I burst out laughing once more. Chris smirked to herself and reached across the table for her own drink, claiming that he could never beat her. Given the fact it was the first time I'd actually seen him speechless, I didn't doubt it.

I decided to leave the remains of his dignity alone and instead changed the subject. "So how's Ripper?" I asked. "He floated through here just after you smashed whatever you did and made a beeline for the outside."

Ayd smiled and moved so that he was sitting on one leg. "He's good. He's still the same as ever; like an old man in pokémon form. He always has loads of stories from 'his day', and if you don't shut him up, he'd quite happily talk you into your grave."

"Sounds like someone else we know," Chris mumbled into her cup. At Ayd's sharp look she pulled an innocent facade and looked away, pretending she'd never said anything.

He sighed and shrugged dramatically. "Times like these, I wonder why on earth I'm actually friends with you."

She laughed and nudged him in the side. "You know you love me really. Otherwise you wouldn't keep coming back for more abuse."

"I don't love you," he deadpanned. "I've got much better taste then that."

Watching them both, I realised how close they were as friends. Their chitchat made me feel somewhat left out, and I couldn't help but think that maybe there was something hidden behind it, as it seemed to me so much like lovers banter.

"So is there anywhere I can train my pokémon for a bit without disturbing yours?" I asked Chris as I stepped up. "You two obviously have a lot to catch up on, and it's about time for my pokémon to run a few drills anyway."

Chris looked at me and laughed. "'Drills'?" she parroted, and laughed again as she turned to Ayd. "Where'd you find this one? Boot camp? I didn't think you'd start prowling through armies, searching for potential victims." As he blushed once more she grinned and turned back to me. "There's a large clearing about five minutes away, if you just head out those doors and carry on walking straight. There might be a few miltank or arcanine lazing around out there, but as long as you don't attack them, they won't attack you."

I glanced out the window and imaged having to fend off an angry arcanine with my team. "Urm, I've got your word on that, right?"

She shook her head in amusement. "I can't make that promise. As much as I've taught and trained them, they're still pokémon. As long as they don't think you're a threat, they shouldn't go for you. But stay a nice distance away regardless, just in case." She got up, stood next to me and pointed at a few places outside of the window. "Stay away from that direction; that's where mother manetric lives. She's a nice girl, but since you've got her pup's scent on your boots, she may very well react negatively. Don't worry if any of the pokémon come up to you though, they'll just be curious. Oh, and you might want to watch out for Ursula. She's a garchomp, and she's just had a batch of eggs, so anyone that gets too close to her territory runs the risk of losing their head. Or having their intestines pulled out through their ears, if they're lucky."

I looked at her, mouth agape. "Garchomp don't carry out that sort of punishment, do they?"

Chris just smiled at me. "Who said it would be the garchomp harming anyone?"

It pretty much cemented any idea I had of not crossing Chris. While Mia may have always joked around about causing people harm, something told me that Chris' threats were more like promises.

I'm pretty sure every woman I've known in my life could very well be a psychopath.

* * *

I decided to give Chris and Ayd enough time to catch up, and ended up training my pokémon for a good few hours. Loki seemed more than happy to be out around other pokémon, and I ended up having to convince Lacey to keep an eye on him. In the end, she said something to him which most likely put the fear of God into the creature. I wondered what on earth could scare a pokémon that couldn't actually die, but decided my sanity probably depended on me not knowing.

I also had the problem of trying to detach myself from Erra. I could get her to go and train, but every five or so minutes she would fly back to me, as if to reassure herself that we hadn't run off without her, and then attached herself to my arm or my head again. Xander was the only member of my team that seemed to be in anyway sane, though I knew soon enough he would become a lombre, and then develop a habit for playing pranks on people.

It made me truly confused as to how much evolution could change a pokémon. I knew that it contained the obvious physical changes, though I didn't know much else about it. All the information in books and in my pokédex made me think that it would end up changing their personalities, which on a level, made sense to me. I doubted that Lacey was ever a sinister seedot, plotting doom for everyone she encountered.

I could only attempt to relate it back to humans, and the changes we went through in puberty. Since people did change somewhat, and over time, people could change their opinions on the world and come into themselves more, I assumed pokémon's evolution would be somewhat similar to that.

The only person I could really ask, I realised, was Chris. She was a pokémon breeder – surely she'd raised multiple pokémon from infancy to adulthood.

With that in mind I ventured back to her house, and called my pokémon back into their poké balls before I went back in. Chris was a pleasant woman, but I didn't want to piss her off and end up with something being thrown at me – much less her arm. The thought of seeing a flying fake arm as the last thing before you died made me grin to myself even as I tried to pry my feet out of my urine-covered boots.

"Back at last then," Chris said, successfully making me leap out of my skin and dive straight down for the knife in my boot. The whole time I'd been at hers, I'd hidden my gun and larger blade in my backpack, and couldn't help but feel slightly on edge without them. Though given what I'd been through on my journey, I couldn't be blamed.

"We were just wondering whether we should send out a search party for you," she said as she walked towards me, stopping at my side. She smiled at me then leant against the doorframe, staring out across her land. "Personally, I wasn't too worried."

I grinned. "Were you that confident in me?"

She laughed. "No." My confidence suddenly plummeted at that. "It was just that none of my pokémon had come back with the scraps of what was left of you. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had something bring back the remains of what was once a pokémon. Or a mailman. There's never really enough to identify them."

I stared up at her. "Your pokémon attack the postman?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes. Depends on what pokémon's on guard, or whether the postman's stupid enough to try and snoop around the place. Though it's always quite funny to see one being chased down the garden path by an angry dodrio."

I laughed at the mental image that popped up in my head. "So where's Ayd got to?" I asked.

Chris looked down at me, then nodded towards ten o'clock. "He's out catching up with a few of his pokémon. Aside from Ripper, he's got three others that he keeps here."

I jumped to my feet and craned my head in the direction she'd indicated. "And you don't mind having to look after his pokémon?"

"I benefit too," she told me. "As insane as he is sometimes, he's a damn good trainer. I could sell some of their offspring for a small fortune, given they bred with the right partner."

"What's stopping them?" I asked.

She sighed and shook her head. "For one thing; some pokémon are life-mate breeders. As in, they choose one mate, and stick with them for life, similar to humans and marriage. Except without the white, fluffy dresses. Then of course, you've got the government controlled pokémon – some pokémon can't be bred without a special license, just in case they're too dangerous, too whatever excuse they want to make, or just that their population needs to stay low. Having an influx of gyarados in Hoenn wouldn't exactly be a good thing, you know?"

I nodded. It made sense, though admittedly, beforehand I'd thought that breeders could produce whatever pokémon they liked, all in order to make as much money as possible. I realised in that just how naive my views of the world could be sometimes.

"I was actually hoping to chat to you on your own anyway," she confided in me, keeping her gaze fixed outside of the windows.

"Really?" I asked, curious. And a little bit flattered and foolishly hopeful. "What about?"

She seemed to read my mind. "Nothing like that. You're a little bit too young for me." Catching the way my grin dropped, she allowed me a little slither of hope, "Maybe if you were about five years older."

Knowing where I stood, I opted for a serious approach. "So what did you want to talk to me about then?"

She spared me a glance. "Adryan." She said it without any sort of humour, and I wondered just what she wanted to talk to me about. Instantly my mind was boggled with various different thoughts. Maybe he'd badly injured himself in the Cluster, and he needed surgery or something? Maybe something had gone horribly wrong, and he had some sort of ghost or psychic inhabiting his body? Maybe he'd abused a psychic's power to get out of there alive, and he wanted Chris to tell me he was dying?

She pulled a face, sighed and then chewed her lip. Obviously it was a difficult topic for her. "You're close to him, aren't you? I just want to know... how much do you trust him?"

Her question caught me completely off guard, and for a moment I floundered, searching for a response. "He's pretty much my only true friend in the whole of Hoenn," I told her, honestly enough to surprise myself. "He's helped me get through a lot on my journey, and pointed me in almost every direction I need to take. So I'd say I trust him as much as humanly possible."

"Right," she whispered, and leant her head against the doorframe.

"Why?" I asked her. "Don't you?"

She shook her head instantly. "No, don't get me wrong; he's one of my best friends. I've known him for years now, and I love him to bits. But... you should know that he has a habit of telling stories so that he always seems as good as he possibly can.

I shrugged. "Everyone lies. Nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe," she agreed. "But it's the problem with lies; they escalate until they're running away from you, and you can't keep track of what really happened in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if he ever remembers..." she caught herself and glanced at me. "Tell me, has he ever told you about Cerulean?"

"That you, him and Owen went in there, Owen died and you lost your arm to a parasect?" I nodded. "Yeah, why?"

She wrapped her hand around an imaginary arm. "Did he ever tell you how Owen died?"

I nodded. "He said he got caught by a few ditto, and they ate him. What about it?"

She took a deep breath and blew it through her teeth. "It's true, but only to an extent."

My patience was pretty thin. She kept skirting around a subject she seemed to think I had to know, making me worry more and more what she was trying to say. "So what exactly are you trying to tell me?"

She took another deep breath. "I'm trying to tell you, that's not completely how Owen died. It wasn't an accident at all.

"Adryan killed him."


	26. Hope Within Shadows

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Hope Within Shadows

* * *

**

_Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead__~ Benjamin Franklin_

**-O-O-O-**

"_It's strange where we can find something that might help us. Sort of along the lines of 'every cloud has a silver lining', except on a much more practical scale. If your pokémon dies, you can sometimes find the strength to carry on, or even find strength you didn't know you had. You could find out an enemy is a friend or vice versa. The betrayal or the confidence can help you to accomplish a lot._

"_Of course, then there's the times where our hope is shot to pieces, when we find out something that baffles us so. It could be something that makes us hate someone, distrust them, or merely doubt their motives or your importance to them._

"_But if that person helps you, of their own free will, you should re-evaluate your perspective of them. Learn to trust them again, though this time take what you've learnt and remember it for future reference."_

- Unknown, _(Unknown date, 2568)_

**-O-O-O-**

"You're lying."

It was an instantaneous, reflexive defence for my friend, and the words slipped out before I'd even thought of them. Though as soon as I heard them myself, I realised how much I believed them. Ayd just couldn't be a killer. I _knew_ he couldn't be. Killers were warped individuals with small grips on the world, and unable to stop seeing anything in shades of grey.

I should know. I am one after all.

Chris looked at me, offered a small smile, and then stared back outside. "I wish what I was saying was nothing but a lie to scare you." The sadness in her voice told me that either she was telling the truth, or she was a formidable actress. "But I know Adryan. I know what stories he twists, and what to look for when he's not telling the truth."

I closed my open mouth and chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment. "You can't blame me for not completely believing you. I mean, sure, I've only known Ayd for a few months; he's bound not to have told me his life story, or anything close to it. But him killing someone seems a bit farfetched."

To my surprise, Chris smiled at my words. "At least you're smart enough to know you need to make your own opinions and hear things for yourself." She looked at me once more and sighed. "You can ask him if you like, though I'm not sure if he'd tell you. He hasn't even told _me _the full truth."

That caught my attention. "So you don't know it for definite?"

"I saw it," she told me, icily. "It took me a while to understand it completely, and a while longer to actually believe it myself. They were arguing about something, Adryan pushed him, which made Owen fall over and break his neck on the rocks beneath him."

I found the flaw in her argument. "So it could have all been accidental then?" But more than that, "And you agreed that Owen was ate by wild ditto. If he died by breaking his neck on a rock, why would too claim he was eaten by ditto?"

She shrugged. "I suppose, more than anything, it's a force of habit," she said, void of emotion. "We've constantly told people he was eaten by ditto, if only because that's what finally happened."

I stopped and stared. "What do you mean?"

"I saw Adryan pick up Owen's body and throw it to the ditto when he realised Owen was dead," she informed me. "If that's not killing someone, then what is?"

"But... why did you defend Ayd then?" I asked. It didn't make sense, if she was such good friends with both of them, to cover up the murder of one by the other.

She sighed and rolled her head on the doorframe. "There wasn't any way I could prove what really happened. More than that though, Adryan had saved my life countless times, I felt that I owed it to him to find out what really happened there – if there was something that happened that I didn't see. But I never had the courage to bring up the subject. And well... after a while, I just convinced myself that what I had seen was wrong. I told myself that Adryan could never do that to Owen, and after a while, I just believed it. I believed that nothing had ever happened, and somehow believed that Owen had died by nothing more than an accident."

I glanced at her and saw the way her body shook, almost periodically, as she breathed deeply, relaying her tale. I could tell she was telling the truth, and that she honestly regretted not mentioning anything sooner.

"Why the change now then?" I asked, confused. If she'd honestly buried it for so long, what brought about everything resurfacing?

She turned her head to look at me briefly, a small, sad smile on her face. "I guess I don't want to see history repeating itself. Even if it destroys our friendship, I think it's about time I found out the truth about what happened in there."

She seemed to believe it all. But even still, I found it hard to believe. Adryan just didn't seem capable of killing anyone, or being able to live with the guilt afterwards.

As much as I tried to picture it happening, I just couldn't. I knew that if I really wanted to know what happened, I'd have to ask Ayd himself.

I caught myself. What did it really matter if Ayd had killed someone? I'd known him for a few months, and in that whole time he'd never tried to kill me. As long as he didn't try to kill me, I knew that really, it didn't bother me as much as it would have, had I been from this world myself.

Though a larger part of me held logical reason; I was a killer myself. Who was I to judge?

"If he did, or if he didn't kill Owen; it doesn't matter much to me," I told Chris, perhaps sounding harsher than I had intended. "I've known him since after that happened anyway. I've either always known him as a killer, or always known him not as one. Either way, he's still the same person I've always known."

Chris' face went through a multitude of emotions, starting from shock, and ending with a somewhat impressed, appreciative look on her face.

"I like you," she told me, and snorted at her own words. "You're not afraid of speaking your mind, and you keep the people in your life for who they are, not what. It's a quality most people don't seem to possess."

I shrugged somewhat sheepishly. "Thanks. I guess." I couldn't be blamed for such a viewpoint after all. I was a killer, so was one of my pokémon, and another was an infant trickster demon. Added to that, I'd grown up in a world where even the lowest and worst of people had managed to save my life.

I was like a bright, shining light from a world overrun with the darkness of humanity. I became giddy with both an overinflated ego and sense of pride.

Though Chris did effectively manage to bring it crashing back down. "Do me a favour though, and hold off from asking Ayd anything about it for about a day." She sighed and turned back into the room, her eyes burning with resolve. "Like I said earlier; I think it's high time I sit down with him and really sort out what really went on that day. I've put it off too long."

I nodded. "Standing there evaluating my reactions isn't going to help things much either."

She laughed at that. "No it won't. Though I wouldn't be a good best friend if I didn't." She chuckled to herself, meeting my own blank face with a small grin of her own. Yet again I felt like I'd missed something, though chose to push the matter aside. Though at least it worked in distracting her from the more morose topic of conversation we had previously been on.

"Do pokémon's personalities change much after evolution? I mean, my lotad's pretty close now, and he's always been a loyal, helpful thing. But every source of information says he'll become mischievous when he's a lombre," I asked, it being the burning question that had brought me back to the house in the first place.

"Ah, I getcha," Chris said. She moved into the room and fell back into the same couch as before, though this time she put her feet up on the coffee table, as opposed to removing her arm. "They do change somewhat, but it's only really certain traits becoming more dominant. Just like how human children can become troublesome when they grow up, so can pokémon. The whole process of evolution in pokémon is the same as growing up in humans; we always keep the same basic personality, but we develop certain quirks as we grow up, whether through external influences, or just becoming more confident in ourselves.

"I mean, before I met Ayd, I'd never really seen the point in dirty jokes. I'd always thought they were the product of some perverse old man," she confided in me. "But after getting to know Ayd, I realised that they _could_ actually be funny, and there wasn't anything wrong with them. So in a sense, he brought out my sense of humour. I've still got the same personality as before, though I'm able to take and make jokes better than before. Let's see your lotad then, I'll tell you how soon he's going to evolve."

I nodded and plucked his ball from my bandolier, calling him out into the more spacious part of the room.

... except nothing happened.

The ball bounced off the floor and rolled along, bouncing softly off the small step in the room.

Chris looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "You sure that's the right ball?"

I double checked myself, and found that the marking I'd left on it was indeed Xander's. I tried to call him out once more, and obtained the exact same result.

After the third try, I ended up just wildly shaking it, hoping something would happen.

It did, in the form of Chris jumping up and placing her hand over the ball, stopping me.

"Let me see that," she said, and managed to pry it from me before I'd even thought about agreeing. She turned it over in her hand a few times, and then finally glanced at the activation button on the front, and passed her thumb over it with a small smile.

"That's why," she said, and held it out for me to see. "Look around the switch; concentrate enough and you'll see something."

I looked at her face a moment, not believing a word she said. Reluctantly, and feeling somewhat foolish in doing so, I squinted at the ball, trying to make out something in particular. It took several moments, though when it did, it looked almost like...

"It's glowing?" I whispered, amazed.

"Yup," she said, and pressed the ball back into my hands. "Which pretty much rules out any doubt there might have been otherwise; your pokémon's evolving."

The thought brought a smile to my face as I stared at Xander's ball. The next time I'd call him out, he'd be a lombre, and thus, more powerful. One thing stuck out in my mind, and I found that I still didn't understand it, despite trying to think of an explanation on my own.

"So why does a pokémon disappear for a few days, or stay inside of its poké ball when it evolves?" I asked as I placed Xander's ball back.

Chris sat back down again. "Like I told you before; pokémon growth is a lot like humans. Except, we don't happen to grow extra limbs, organs or even lose them. Pokémon are different. They go through all that, and still manage to adjust to it all. What takes them longer is the fact that they're stronger after evolution. The flames they make are hotter, their electricity is more potent, or even the poison they produce is more toxic. Now think about it. If you were suddenly more powerful than before, what would happen?"

I shrugged. "I'd have fun with it?"

My response got me a laugh, but that was all. "Okay, stupid question to ask. They obviously can't control it all at first, so they're prone to accidentally loosing it all. So if they're wild, they find a secluded place in which they can adjust, and they won't be able to hurt anyone, or as few people or pokémon as possible. It's safer in a poké ball, because then they definitely can't hurt anyone, and they also don't run the risk of being preyed upon while they're vulnerable."

It meant that if a pokémon ever evolved outside of its poké ball, I ran the risk of being bathed in accidental flames or whatnot, or just never seeing my pokémon again. Everything I leant always gave me something to look forward to, at least.

"So why is this happening now then?" I asked her. "I was training Xander less than an hour ago, and he was fine then. Now he's evolving and won't come out of his ball?"

"Your training is probably what made this possible," she told me. "It's known throughout the whole world that pokémon evolve by learning from battling, but not as many people know truly why that is. What happens is that adrenaline triggers the evolutionary hormone in pokémon. When the pokémon's old enough, and enough of the hormone has been produced, the pokémon evolves."

I nodded. "Thanks. Ayd's only so much help. He tells me things, but never bothers explaining them," I told her. "I'm not sure whether I should be thankful to him for telling me things, or annoyed that he doesn't explain it all."

"Well, at least you've got me," Chris laughed. "Though I wouldn't be too sure about anything Ayd explained to you anyway. It'll either end in disaster, like when he tried explaining to us how to make budget healing items, and they damn well exploded on us, or they'll destroy your sanity, like when he explained to us mating habits of slugma."

Instantly I was tortured with the thought of two fiery red slugs having sex. My face scrunched up in repulsion and I couldn't suppress the physical shudder that came with it.

Instantly Chris was sniggering to herself. "And now you're suffering that mental image, I bet."

I pulled another face. "Why would you inflict that torture on anyone? It's just cruel!"

"What's cruel?" Ayd said from by my side, and I barely contained my startled yelp.

"The idea of slugma sex," Chris supplied.

Ayd laughed and sunk onto the couch next to her. "At least that's only the thought. _I_ had to grow up _watching_ it!"

Chris grinned and help up her hands. "Hey, if that's your thing, I'm not gonna judge."

I chuckled at her words, and then caught her eye. I gave her a small nod, and excused myself from the room.

"Don't leave on my account," Ayd quipped.

I floundered at him, lost for words. Thankfully, Chris came to my rescue, understanding why I was leaving her alone in the first place. "He wanted to see the ice pokémon enclosure."

I snapped my head instantly round to her, my mouth dropped open slightly. I was convinced that she was either a genius, or had some inside information on me. I gathered by the sly smirk and the wink she gave me that the latter was probably true, given the way Ayd seemed to share her smirk. The thought that they had talked about me behind my back made me the slightest bit annoyed, though also somewhat curious to know exactly what they were talking about.

"You'll like it," Ayd promised me. "There's a few native Sinnoh pokémon that live there, and one or two imported even from Kanto and further away."

"Ice types fetch a good price in Hoenn," Chris informed me. "They're extremely rare here; you can only really find them in the cave systems near Mossdeep City. Even around Fairfrost Village, which is home to Hoenn's ice gym, any sort of icy pokémon are extremely rare, even in winter."

I figured it pretty much definitely ruled my chances of catching an ice pokémon whilst I was within Hoenn. Alongside a psychic, I reckoned I'd probably never really get to have my own one. I knew that the best I could hope for would be to train Xander to use cold-based techniques, or somehow have Chris like me enough to give me one for free.

Though with the conversation she wanted to have with Ayd, I wasn't sure if _they_ would be friends afterwards.

"Follow the cold," Chris told me, and when Ayd wasn't looking, mouthed her thanks to me.

Though I wasn't sure if he would be as thankful for letting the conversation happen.

* * *

The ice pokémon enclosure, as I found within a few minutes, was a delightful touch of cold within the heat of Hoenn. Unlike the bitterness I felt within the Petalburg Woods, this had a more refreshing feel of cold. It was only enough to make my hands and nose slightly cold, yet I loved every moment of it, and felt perfectly at home.

What amazed me was that the temperature wasn't from any sort of air conditioning, but rather, from the pokémon themselves. It was within a small section of the forests that surrounded Chris' farm, or ranch, or whatever she called it. There were a few hills here and there, a large pond that I felt was big enough to qualify as a small lake. There was even an artificial miniature mountain, nearly fifty foot high and quite obviously built by some native pokémon, given the claw marks underneath some boulders, as if they'd been carried by a pokémon, rather than marked.

There were a few pokémon around in the enclosure, though I couldn't count more than ten. A sealeo and dewgong barked at me from inside the miniature-lake, as a delibird scampered around the limits of the water, skating on patches of ice created by the pokémon living there, no doubt. I could see that in the shades of the tress there was a small snover, and on the 'mountain' I could see a snorunt being chased playfully by a swinub and a smoochum.

Strangely enough I could see a weavile there too, sat on a large rock nearby, sharpening its claws as it surveyed the landscape, analysing every small detail with a curious eye. I didn't doubt the creature's ability to attack without warning, and decided not to give it any cause to.

By my side was Lacey, who I could tell was analysing each and every one of the pokémon, no doubt wondering what poisons would be best to use on the creatures she hadn't encountered before. It gave me the image of her as a scientist, testing out the limits of pokémon to understand them better, further probing them in order to understand them as best she could.

I laughed and pushed the thought away. The last thing I needed to increase my insanity was the image of a nuzleaf in a lab coat. Instead I turned to her as I leant my elbows on a wooden fence, and asked the question that had been bugging me for a while, "When you evolved, did you change a lot?"

Her strange, yellow eyes narrowed on me, and I was sure I saw some sense of sarcasm in there. I was certain of the fact, when she pointed to both of her arms, and then her main body itself.

"Okay," I conceded. "Aside from the obvious fact that you grew arms, legs and a chest. I meant more personality wise. Were you a lot different then? Somehow, I can't see you being a murderous seedot."

Even if the thought alone brought a smile to my face.

She shrugged once more and pulled on a loose strand of white hair. She made a few gestures, and I found myself having to play guessing games once more. Thankfully though, it seemed like Lacey was getting better at pantomiming what she meant – or more that she'd taken to hitting me every time I got something completely wrong. Given that she was trying to learn how to naturally produce poisons from her body, I didn't want to suffer too much abuse from the pokémon.

Eventually I managed to put together what she was telling me; as a seedot, she was a lot more defensive and easily scared. Apparently those traits had carried on, somewhat, into her evolution, though she did become a lot more confident, and discovered that she actually liked inflicting pain. I didn't doubt the latter, and assumed it was mainly because nuzleaf were creatures of darkness, unlike seedot.

"So at least I won't need to expect the others changing much," I theorised. "Or you either, when you become a shiftry fully." I turned away from her and stared out towards the pokémon. "When's that going to be anyway?"

She grunted something unintelligible, though I saw her shrug out of the corner of my eye. I managed to find out that she'd started evolving almost two years prior, and figured that really it should only take another two, at most, for it to be completed, given how far along she seemed to be.

She hissed something at me, and it took me a moment to understand what she meant, which lead to another round of theatrics.

"Xander's evolving; that's why I'm asking you," I told her, answering her theatrical question. "I've never had one of my pokémon evolve before, so I didn't know what changes, and what doesn't." I smiled at the thought of Xander remaining the same, even as a lombre, and then was hit by the realisation of it all. "Great," I groaned, resting my forehead on my arms. "If pokémon don't change much, then I'm almost definitely going to have an over-attached magneton on my hands. Remind me; from now on, I'm only capturing pokémon that don't evolve, or that are fully evolved."

She grunted something similar to an amused laugh at me as I drew my head back up and stared at the pokémon in their specifically created landscape. I watched them as they carried on their lives, and found myself thinking of what Chris had told me.

She reckoned it wasn't an accident at all, and that Ayd had really killed Owen, and had planned it all out. But it didn't seem like it to me, rather, that it was all one horrible accident that ended incredibly badly. I knew that if I accidentally killed someone, I'd be tempted to hide the evidence, rather than admit to it. By that token, I supposed that most other people would too.

But the main problem was that I didn't know the answer for definite. Ayd could have killed him on purpose, or it could have been all accidental. I knew that really I shouldn't care, if only because I couldn't judge him. Added to that, I had Lacey as a pokémon, who used to kill people for fun, and had a lot more victims than Ayd, and probably myself too.

I realised quickly that my problem wasn't the fact that he could have killed someone, but it was more that I had no control over him. Lacey was a killer, yes, but she was obedient towards me, and I knew that she wouldn't kill me, if only through fear she herself would perish. Adryan on the other hand, had his own free will. I knew that if he was in fact a killer, he could do so any time he wished, and the only way I would be able to stop him would be to kill him myself. It made me realise that I didn't want it to come to that, and that if I had the choice, I would rather he live.

I shook my head to clear away the thoughts. I knew that if he really wanted to kill me, he would have done so already. He'd helped me the whole way alone, and I was sure that he himself would freak out completely if he learnt how many people I'd killed, if not moreso _who _I'd killed.

My thoughts were getting more and more ridiculous, and I knew it. I had to ask him what the truth was, if only to put my mind at rest. But I knew I couldn't ask him anytime soon after Chris had asked him herself, if only because I felt bad about making him go through it all twice.

It made me laugh at myself. In my own world, I knew that I never would have had any doubts about finding out whether or not someone was trustworthy. Hell, in my own world, I rarely cared what anyone else thought, and would kill them without second thought if they endangered me.

And yet, here I was in the new world, actually considering other people's well-beings, and even trying my best to find ways and reasons not to kill them. I wondered if it was like how I would have behaved if rather than growing up in my world, I grew up in the one I found myself in.

With a sigh I pulled myself back to the real world and threw a grin towards Lacey. "Ever think how differently things could have turned out?" I asked her. "Like what if I hadn't been pulled from my world, and instead was still there, with Alex in his rightful place? I mean, would he have captured you, or Loki, or any of the same pokémon I would?"

I turned towards Lacey, and once more I saw the strange look of pity in her eyes. I really was convinced that she knew something I didn't, and that even if she could speak, she wouldn't tell me regardless. There was just something in the look she gave me that told me she knew something I wasn't allowed to.

It annoyed, confused and intrigued me, all at once.

The nuzleaf grunted something, and I turned to her as she offered a small shrug and leant on the fence, like me. The pity was gone from her face, but I could see that she was thinking, no doubt considering the very question I'd asked her. The thought of it entertained me alone, and it wasn't the first time I'd had such thoughts. I'd usually end up thinking such things as I tried to sleep, usually for a good hour before I would be haunted by my nightmares of demons and my victims. It was, however, the first time I'd voiced the thoughts out loud, and it made me feel slightly better that it wasn't just me that would end up wondering about it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the weavile leap from its rock and start to approach Lacey and me. I nudged Lacey in the side and made it clear for her to be on guard as the strange creature dropped to all fours and skulked up to us, occasionally stopping and sniffing at the air, as if reading our very beings by scent alone.

Finally it stopped before us both, sniffed again before it leapt onto two feet and let loose a challenging hiss. Lacey stiffened instantly, and I had to knock her on the shoulder to stop her from attacking the creature. After all, it no doubt belonged to Chris, and I didn't think she'd appreciate us attacking any of her pokémon.

"Leave it alone," I instructed her, and made the point of backing away from it. "It's probably just the leader of the little ice-gang here, and searching for a chance to improve its social ranking."

I heard footsteps crunching over the grass behind us, and craned my neck to see who it was coming. It was a woman I hadn't seen before, and she had chocolate coloured hair pulled back into a ponytail, with a few strands loose here and there. Her tan showed that she spend a lot of time in the sun, and dark brown eyes stared at me, evaluating me and possibly the reasons why I was here. Like Chris she wore a white apron, though hers was over a dark blue polo and brown slacks.

She smiled at me as she approached, and then gestured behind us with a nod. "Careful with Akshar," she said, and I heard the weavile hiss a response. "She's a bit territorial, and has a habit of picking fights with any strangers."

I nudged Lacey in the side. "Told you so."

The girl smiled once more, and I figured she couldn't have been more than sixteen, given the strange sort of cuteness she had when she smiled.

"I'm actually surprised she hasn't outright attacked you yet," she told me, and approached the weavile with a calm demeanour. "She's usually hasty in attacking people, if only to make sure they can't land the first hit. Isn't that right, Akshar?" she cooed as she rubbed the pokémon's head, and it made a strange sound, almost like it was purring, at her touch. It seriously warped everything and anything I'd learnt about the creatures being fierce, malevolent hunters.

"What can I say? Obviously I must have a way with the weavile," I quipped, shamelessly. Behind me, Lacey rolled her eyes and I'm fairly certain would have recalled herself in morbid shame by association.

The girl laughed at me. "If anything, you must just smell like one." She grinned and turned back to the creature, and with her attention diverted, I lifted an armpit and sniffed. As the girl turned back to look at me, I quickly dropped my arm and snapped my head round as if I were simply staring off towards the different pokémon frolicking around the grounds.

"I'm Amanda, by the way," she said with a brace-filled smile. I blinked and wondered how I hadn't managed to notice them before, and realised how little attention I happened to be paying to her mouth. Once I introduced myself, she blew a loose strand of hair from her face and glared at me. "So you're the one that's made me forfeit a drink, I take it?"

I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. "It wasn't _exactly_ my fault. I think the electrike just decided that I was its territory or something. I should just be thankful it was that doing it, and not a fully grown arcanine, or something like that."

She chuckled at something. "That happened a while ago, to someone else that was working here. I think he was doing work experience or something? But anyway, there was this big arcanine here for a while that decided he was part of his territory."

I could guess where her story was going. "So it marked him then?"

She held her sides as she laughed even harder. "It took three weeks for him to get the stink out of his clothes. Every time he went anywhere near another pokémon, it thought he _was_ an arcanine, so attacked him!"

I glanced at Lacey out of the corner of my eye. "Don't even think about it," I warned her. I wouldn't put it past her to try and get wild pokémon to attack me, whether for her freedom, or for her sadistic amusement. Or knowing her, most likely both.

Amanda gave Lacey the once-over and placed a hand on her hip. "So is she your first pokémon then?"

I blinked, looked at Lacey and then back at the girl. Not many people ever gathered any of my pokémon's genders, and even I had to resort to modern technology to discern them. When I asked her just how she managed to identify such a thing, she grinned at me.

"Female nuzleaf always have smaller leaves covering their hands than males," she informed me, and gestured towards Lacey's own hands. "Granted yours is becoming a shiftry, so hers are going to be quite long anyway, but the females only ever have them grow just long enough to cover their hands, whereas the males' leaves grow an extra half."

My mouth was hanging open in amazement. The fact that she could discern genders of pokémon by sight alone was quite something, I felt. I could identify most by sight alone, and yet never really learnt how to discern genders – apart from those in which it was physically obvious.

"That's quite something," I said, impressed. "I didn't know people could tell differences in pokémon genders just by the lengths of their leaves, or the like."

Amanda gave me another toothy grin. "Well, I want to be a pokémon breeder; I've got to know my stuff. I'm just lucky that Chris employs me – most people won't go anywhere hiring someone of my age, or with my experience."

I could understand the reasons behind that. I doubted a ten year old kid who'd never gone anywhere near a pokémon would be as able to milk a miltank as someone who had experience with pokémon.

"You never answered my question though," she pointed out.

"Oh, right," I said, having completely forgot in lieu of her intelligence. I went to tell her that in fact, my first pokémon was only Xander, and that he was just becoming a lombre, but a part of me decided to forgo the normal explanation of the truth. If people kept assuming things, as long as I didn't set them straight, I wasn't completely lying.

Though of course, bare-faced lying was commonplace to me. If everything of my so-called 'past' was all fabricated, why couldn't I include something about owning a pokémon in there, now that I knew more about them?

"She's my oldest pokémon," I told her, not answering the question directly. "Lacey's been with me for a while now."

The pokémon in question scoffed at my words, and folded her arms scornfully. I turned my neck sharply to look at her, which she met with a curled lip and a mischievous grin. Of course, in being unable to murder any of the pokémon on Chris' land, she would have to resort to torturing me for amusement, wouldn't she?

"You're a bad liar," Amanda told me, bouncing on her tiptoes impishly. "You're avoiding questions, rather than answering them. Sure sign of a liar."

I flushed bright red and shot another look to Lacey, who I'm sure was laughing at my back. "Well, uh, you see..." I attempted to explain myself miserably.

The girl smiled once more. "Typical man. Always trying to impress the girl." I stared at her, dumbfounded, and found that she began to chuckle at me again. "The benefits of working with Chris are, among other things, that she doesn't mince her words. She's quite often pointing out typical man-habits to me, and always explaining the typical things you guys do. I think she's taken me in as her little sister or something."

"Oh," I said, and felt myself deflate instantly. That pretty much ruined any thoughts I had of trying to impress anyone with my normal attitude. "So what's the new secret to success then?" I asked cheekily. "Act like I'm just not interested in the slightest, or hit the gym so much I don't have a neck anymore?"

She rolled her eyes at me and scratched the weavile behind the ears. "I'll let you know when you're making an effect. Be thankful we're not all like Akshar here. If she doesn't like someone, she tends to slice their face off."

The pokémon turned around to me, eyes half-closed in bliss and looking like it wouldn't hurt a ledyba. "So what made her like that then?" I asked. "I thought that weavile were pack animals, so wouldn't really go around attacking others."

Amanda nodded, grunting affirmation as she did so. "Normally they are. But Chris told me she got her in Sinnoh. Apparently her and her mate were the alpha pair of a clan. They were meant to protect the clan against any others, but supposedly a load of poachers came and hunted them all. As far as we're aware, Akshar's mate was attacked by them and lost an eye, and still tried to fend them off. Instead, most of the pack got killed, and only Akshar managed to escape."

I looked at the pokémon, and wondered how it would be so content to be around people after all that it had supposedly suffered. It would be like me being comfortable being looked after by a pack – or whatever they were known as – of the demons.

The thought of it alone made me shudder violently. Instead I drew my mind back to the weavile by asking, "How does Chris know all of this, anyway?"

Amanda smiled. "One of her pokémon is a xatu. When they're trained enough, they can bypass the mental barrier dark pokémon have, and can read their minds without problems. I know that some people say it's morally wrong to forcefully read something's mind, but when you've got a pokémon that's freaking out and trying to kill everything, your choices are to either find out what the problem is, or to put them down."

I knew what my answer to such a problem would have been. No questions asked, I would have put down any problem pokémon. If in anyway a pokémon was hindering me, or stopping me from completing what I needed to, I wouldn't hesitate to remove them from my way.

Except, I knew that if it were one of my pokémon, I'd make sure that killing them was one of the last options I'd consider. I figured that if I felt that way, no doubt Chris would feel the same, and somehow, she must have considered all the pokémon that she looked after to be her pokémon.

"So what other pokémon do you have?" Amanda asked suddenly, turning away from the weavile. I considered it a stupid move; exposing her back to an obviously dangerous creature, with past history of distrust towards humans, but to my surprise, the weavile simply licked her claws and turned to walk away.

I glanced towards Lacey and considered what she would do to someone, if their back were turned to her, and I wasn't around to stop her. No doubt the end result wouldn't be pretty.

"I've got a lotad that's evolving into a lombre, as well as a sableye. I've also got a magnemite I just captured," I said, and saw the way Lacey tensed at the mention of Erra. "She's a little over-affectionate though; she either ends up clinging to me, or to Lacey."

The nuzleaf hissed at the mention of it alone. She wasn't happy about having a magnemite being tangled in her hair, and had no qualms about pointing out her annoyance of the creature.

"Can I see her?" Amanda asked. "Your magnemite, can you let her out?"

I fumbled for her ball, taken aback by the strange request. Though regardless I let the pokémon out, and shattered the gentle calming noises of rustling tree leaves and distant pokémon sounds with the harsh buzzing from Erra's wings. She latched onto my arm instantly, clicking as she climbed up my arm with her strange, spindly insect legs.

"Hey," Amanda said, stretching out her hand towards the bug. There was a small pellet of food in her hand, and she offered it tentatively to Erra.

Instead of accepting it, Erra just clicked irritably and scuttled away, deciding instead to rest on my head. Small sparks of static raced down my ears and my neck, making all the small hairs stand on end.

Once more Amanda tried to offer her food, and instead Erra buzzed again, though this time got up and flew over to Lacey, attaching herself to the nuzleaf.

"She's not over-affectionate," Amanda informed me, placing her hands on her hips. "She's just timid."

"'Timid'?" I repeated, confused. "But she's not running away, or hiding."

Amanda rolled her eyes at me. "Timidness isn't just measured by hiding in fear or running away from people. That's why she clings to you and your nuzleaf – she's just afraid."

I took her advice and thought about it. In a way, it made perfect sense. It was most likely why I had to resort to getting her attacked by the wingull first, before she would attack, and probably why it took so long to try and get her to train.

"So, how do I stop her being timid?" I asked.

Amanda rolled her eyes. "You can't stop it; it's part of your pokémon's personality. All you can do is install in her a sense of confidence that will let your pokémon battle. Should your pokémon be acting like that?" she asked suddenly, and pointed behind me.

The smell of burning hair caught my nostrils, and I turned in time to see Lacey trying her best to pry Erra from her chest. The magnemite was tangled within Lacey's hair, buzzing wildly and discharging electricity everywhere she could as the nuzleaf tried in vain to remove her.

I raised my eyebrow and turned back to the girl. "And you see why I find it hard to believe my pokémon's timid? She seems more attached. She gets like this whenever we start trying to train as well."

"She's obviously afraid of being on her own around new things. She must only attach herself to your pokémon because they smell like you," she told me.

I considered the thought. Lacey usually smelt of some strange spices, as well as fresh-cut grass. Loki always smelt of sulphur, Erra warm and coppery, like coins that you had held onto for too long, and Xander had a wet, slimy amphibian smell to him.

Overall, I figured I probably stunk like week-old meat next to any of them, and hoped that it was their scents managing to cover up my own, rather than the other way round.

"You mentioned that she takes a while to start training as well," Amanda said, placing a fist under her chin. "All in all, it sounds like she's rather afraid of battling, as if there's something that makes her reluctant to fight. Tell me; how did you capture her?"

I thought back to it, and remembered her defending herself well, with my ears managing to bleed with that horrible screeching sound she produced – which I still couldn't manage to get her to reproduce. I remembered trying to get Xander to soak her, and after that, us all being abused by the horrible screeching sound she made.

And more prominently than that; Lacey smashing Erra's skull against the ground, again and again.

I winced. No wonder Erra was afraid of getting back into combat. Though it made me wonder why she would attach herself to Lacey after enduring something that made her fearful to battle.

When I explained it all to Amanda, she pulled a face. "I'm not sure then. Either your magnemite's trying to fry your nuzleaf, and can't do so because of the nuzleaf's partial grounding, or she's just trying to brown-nose as much as possible to make sure she doesn't receive such a beating again."

I turned to the fighting pokémon and saw them in a new light. The sparks coming off Erra were no more than those she would make when rested on me, and I knew that if they only felt like static to me, Lacey would barely feel them. It meant that realistically, the latter explanation was the most likely. "She must be sucking up to Lacey then," I decided. Though I couldn't blame her. If I had to work with someone or something that had beaten seven shades of shit out of me, just like Lacey had to Erra, I knew I'd be kissing ass too, all to make sure it didn't happen again.

"Oh well, I'll take this over them trying to murder each other. And my peacemaker's evolving so can't come out of his poké ball..." I groaned.

Amanda smiled once more. "Just be thankful that's the limit of their craziness. I have a wailmer that forgets he needs to hold his breath when he goes underwater and a zangoose that seems to think any sort of serpentine pokémon is a seviper, so tries to rip it to shreds." She sighed and shook her head. "Anyway, I should really get back to work. I've spent too long standing here chatting to you, and I'm meant to be feeding the pokémon."

I offered her a smile. "Maybe I could help? Seeing as I am the cause of you running behind."

She pulled at her collar and glanced at my pokémon. "Maybe if you recall your pokémon – I can't see it going well if you have them around you. And most importantly, you need to do exactly as I'm telling you if you want to help. Anything goes wrong, and I get the blame."

I grinned shamelessly. "You could always tell Chris that I could carry out your punishment?"

Lacey's grunt of disgust was louder than Amanda's mortified cough.

* * *

It was about an hour later that I had finished helping Amanda feed most of the pokémon, and she had thanked me for my help before skipping off towards the house, claiming her shift was nearly over. She also asked me what I was up to for the next few days, and when I answered I wasn't sure, and probably travelling to Lavaridge, she seemed upset. Though she did brighten somewhat when I told her that I'd see her tomorrow, if she was working, and she promised me she'd be looking forward to it.

It was becoming dark, and I was sat on a hill overlooking a part of the grounds, watching a few pokémon scampering around in the wilds. Loki was by my side, and seemed to be interested in the small bugs chirping and bouncing around. He picked up a fallen branch from a nearby tree, and with a throaty rasp he held it above his head and begun to chase the bugs, attempting to crush them with the branch.

I could only laugh at his foolishness as I thought about when it would be safe to go back into Chris' house. I honestly didn't think it would be safe anytime soon, and considered just checking into the nearby pokémon centre when I heard footsteps coming towards me.

Loki seemed to hear them too, and dropped his guard for a moment to see who it was. Upon identifying them, he brandished the branch as a weapon once more, raced towards them and smacked them on the foot.

"Ow!" Ayd yelped, drawing his foot away from the sableye. "I told you!" he swore at me. "See, you say in jest that you're going to kill me, and then your demonic little imp tries to bash me in with a tree branch!"

I looked at Ayd, down to Loki, who had dropped the weapon and was playing innocent, and then back up. I couldn't figure out whether or not Ayd was joking, but his tone was too sharp for my liking, and I jumped to my pokémon's defence in a heartbeat.

"He's just playing," I said, calling over Loki with a gesture. "If he really meant anything, he'd be attacking you with his claws and teeth," I told him as I placed Loki on my lap and scratched him behind the ears.

"Yeah, I suppose," Ayd grumbled as he walked towards us. "Sorry," he mumbled, and dropped down on the grass next to me.

I figured his conversation with Chris hadn't gone too well, or he just wasn't too happy about relieving the experience. Either way, I felt I had to ask, if only for the pretence that I didn't know what was happening.

"What's wrong?" I questioned him, knowing in my gut that he wouldn't actually answer me.

He shrugged. "It's nothing really. Any reason why you're still out here?" he asked, and I knew he'd figured I had at least some clue towards what Chris had spoken to him about.

I played ignorance, and hoped it would work. "I've spent so long out in the wilds now, being inside doesn't feel right to me. If I'm inside for too long now, I start feeling cramped. And it helps that outside, I can let my pokémon out for a bit."

Thankfully Ayd nodded, seemingly accepting my lies as gospel. "So where are the others?" he asked, gesturing to Loki, and then the poké balls on my bandolier.

"I decided to just spend some time with Loki, for now," I said, and grinned as the creature in question made a contented growl. "Lacey's back in her ball – I don't exactly trust her completely with the cover of night, and Erra's attachment issue is a bit much to deal with – even if I now know it's because she's just timid, and sticks to me because I'm safe, or because she doesn't want another beating like Lacey gave her."

Thankfully Ayd skipped over that titbit of information, and instead asked, "And Xander?"

"He's evolving," I said with a small smile. "I can't get him out of his poké ball yet, so I'm guessing he's not fully done yet."

"Well, congratulations," Adryan said, drawing his legs in and hugging his knees. "From what I went through with my pokémon, it'll probably be a few days until you can get him out of there again."

I gave a sideways smile, happy we'd landed on a conversation that could distract him from a conversation that obviously pissed him off. "So how many pokémon have you had evolve then?"

He opened his hands and then began to count on his fingers. "Ten," he informed me, finally. "Though three of them have evolved twice."

I guessed they were his flygon, dusknoir and demon. I knew that eventually Xander would evolve again, and that Erra could evolve twice. "Do the secondary evolutions take a lot longer?" I asked, my mind drifting to Lacey, and her current mid-evolution state.

He gave a shrug. "It's different with different pokémon. Irenui was in her poké ball for a fortnight, Willow for nearly a month, though Ripper only went away for a few hours – I can only guess that's because he's a lot older, so knew how to control the power better."

The information lifted a weight off my shoulders. When Lacey were to evolve, it could potentially be only a few hours. I didn't like the thought of her being out of action for a fortnight, much less a month. She was my strongest pokémon, as well as my biggest lifeline to sanity.

The sheer thought of it alone made me break out into nervous sweat. It didn't help that it was a warm evening, and I sat there fanning myself with my hand, breathing deeply to try and relieve some of the heat.

I didn't think much of it, until Loki looked up at me, sniffed, and then hissed suddenly. The hairs on the back of my neck all flared up at the sound, and I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong.

"That was weird," Ayd commented in the same moment I leapt to my feet.

"Where is it?" I hissed, heart racing a mile a minute.

Loki growled, low and feral, though I barely heard it over my frantic breathing. The world suddenly went from hot to cold, and I felt goosebumps race down my spine.

"Not again... not again..." I wailed, clawing at my face in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable from happening.

The world became hot again, and I fell back a step or two, overcome with the heat. Sweat poured out of me, and I was certain I'd pass out from the sheer heat pulsing around me. I barely heard Ayd shout something over the pulse thudding in my ears, and felt like the whole world was far away; like I was trapped, isolated in the middle of nowhere.

Then the screams started again.

The horrific, nightmarish screams of the makuhita's death pierced my eardrums, sending cold, chilling turmoil into my gut.

There were no electrical lights above me this time to flicker on and off. Instead, the very _sky_ itself seemed to flicker between light and dark. I collapsed into myself, shaking terribly and holding myself in some feeble attempt of a foetal position.

I was going mad.

I had to be.

Sure Veronique had seen everything happen in the Slateport gym before, but there was no way that the freaking _sky_ could flicker like a set of lights!

Throughout it all, the screams didn't stop.

I scrunched my eyes shut and buried my head underneath my arm, deciding that if I couldn't see the haunting presence, it wouldn't be there.

Yet the screams carried on.

Closer, and closer.

And then suddenly, it sounded like they were coming from right in front of me.

I bit back a whimper of a scream, trembling like a frightened puppy at the looming presence I knew was standing over me. I could feel the cold coming from it, and could feel myself being sprayed with phantom blood.

There were other sounds around me, as distant as the sun on a cloudy winter night.

Something splashed my face, and I couldn't resist the urge to wipe it away. I squinted my eyes open, almost dreading the sight of the liquid that would meet me.

It was_ black_.

And bubbling.

And the headless freak was standing right in front of me!

I screamed and rolled away as quickly as I could. The thing lumbered forth with another deadly scream, and I backed away again and again, deaf even to my own screams of protest.

It screamed again, and suddenly the very ground beneath it turned lifeless and black. My screams seemed to be drowned out by that of the creature, and something burst from the ground with a fierce anger, enough to make the headless-ghost-freak leap backwards a few paces.

There was a deep, low groan, like something I should have only heard in the worst of my nightmares. I caught sight of a single red light, flashing like a brilliant torch in an otherwise impenetrable darkness.

_Ripper,_ my mind managed to process, even as my jaw hung slack. The makuhita rose up with a fearsome growl, collecting itself for an assault. It swung at Ripper, and to my amazement, actually managed to hit the ghost.

Ripper hissed something that fit in perfectly with the eerie scenario. It swiped at the makuhita, knocking it backwards and flat on its back in one single blow. The makuhita screamed protest once more, though this time, Ripper seemed to be ready.

There was a horrible, low moaning sound, though it sounded like it was from more than one person. The makuhita screamed once more, and I joined in with its screams as I saw the markings on Ripper's stomach change, and swirling black mass-like vortex burst into life within its chest.

The very sight of it alone filled me with more dread than anything I'd ever thought. I knew I'd gladly take dealing with the makuhita countless times more if it meant never having to gaze into the swirling vortex again.

The makuhita seemed deathly frightened of the vortex, and with good reason. Ripper seemed to fade from view, into the everlasting darkness beneath him. The makuhita screamed its haunting, horrible scream once more, though this time it seemed to be much worse. It broke off halfway, and the creature's scream turned to a deathly gurgle, as if someone had slashed its neck open.

The bright red light of Ripper's single beacon eye shone around the makuhita, and I understood why it was screaming. The strange vortex grew around it, and I watched with mute horror as the makuhita was dragged into it, its headless body flailing all the while.

Finally, with one ultimate, spine-chilling scream it was ripped apart, piece by piece; atom by atom. I saw it all, and was splashed with more of its horrific, black boiling blood as it disappeared forever into the swirling mass of darkness that was Ripper's stomach.

Then just like that, the world seemed to become a normal temperature again. I could make out Loki's grunts and snarls, as well as Adryan shouting something I wasn't quite coherent enough to understand.

Finally, I saw Ripper's eye appear above me again, and the faint, yellow markings curve into something akin to a smile. His eye lit up once, flashing a brilliant crimson, as he _spoke_ in a deep, low voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, yet from so far away.

"_Thou doth not have to fear of death for considerable time yet."_

I blinked, stared up at the pokémon, and then did the only thing that made sense at that moment in time.

I fainted.


	27. The Fight Inside

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Fight Inside

* * *

**

_The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they're not, we cry _~ Anon.

**-O-O-O-**

"_For all the trust we may put in others, we never truly want to let them know us completely. As humans, it is our nature sometimes to want to keep everything we know wrapped up in a tight little ball inside of us. We don't really want to ever share such experiences with anyone else, for fear it makes us weak._

_Which begs the question; is it a bigger sign of trust to let someone know something we don't want them to, or that we're willing to share it with them in particular?"_

- Unknown, _(Unknown date)_

**-O-O-O-**

I wasn't sure of time or day when I awoke. All I knew was that it was incredibly dark, and I was still shaking in fear at some unseen foe.

A small grunt caught my attention, and I damn near leapt out of the bed in fright. Only when I caught the sight of Loki's eyes did I calm down, and relaxed as he crawled across the bed and sat down next to me. He made a few noises, no doubt questioning how I was as he stared up at me.

"I'm fine," I whispered to him with a shaky voice as I reached over and scratched his head. I blinked, looked around the unfamiliar room and then down at myself. "How'd I get here?"

Loki managed to chatter something small in response. I looked at him and groaned, realising my only hope for a decent explanation as to my whereabouts was from a creature who didn't even speak my language.

Instead I settled for questions with answers I'd be more likely to understand.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked my little sableye. "Like Ayd." I patted my chest, and feeling only bare flesh there, felt my blood freeze in my veins. "And the rest of the team?"

Loki grunted and dove off the bed, his head peeking over the side moments later, my bandolier wrapped around his head. I chuckled to myself as I pried it off him, feeling much securer with the presence of the rest of my allies – and weapons – with me. Another grunt caught my attention back to the sableye, and he pointed towards the door, signalling something.

I gathered he was telling me that Ayd was somewhere outside my room.

I thanked him once more, dressed quickly, though spent a good five minutes looking for my boots. I finally realised that Chris had probably decided to wash them free of the electrike piss. Instead I walked out of my room barefoot, and quickly decided that I hated the place as I stepped straight down in a puddle of something wet, warm and _yellow_.

I pulled a face as I rubbed my foot on the floor, trying in vain to dry it off. "This is some sort of divine menace, isn't it?" I grumbled, much aware of Loki's demonic cackles. "Some higher power deciding my life needs misery in all the smallest places."

He stopped laughing long enough to sniff at the small wet patch on the floor. Instantly he hissed at it, and would have carved the carpet up had I not quickly snatched him from the floor.

"Don't go around attacking carpets, _please_," I begged him, even as I held him out in my arms. "At least, not in the house of someone we like. If you really want to tear up some floors, I'll let you break into a carpet store. Or one of those home renovation places. Just don't attack anything in _here_."

He looked up at me, making a noise as his mouth dropped open and his tongue lolled out at the side. I took it as the closest I'd get to an agreement before I called him back into his poké ball. Granted someone would be quite easily able to take me by surprise without him skulking around next to me, but at least I'd be able to walk through Chris' house without anything being destroyed. She was one woman I did _not_ want to piss off, not then, and not ever.

Though when I crept my way into her living room, at least she looked like she wasn't likely to harm me anytime soon. Relief brightened both hers and Ayd's faces, making me truly wonder just how freaked out I'd been by the whole undead makuhita ordeal.

Though with them both staring at me, I felt incredibly awkward. "Uh, howdy?" I mumbled.

"'Howdy' yourself," Ayd said, incredulously. He leapt out of his seat, face a picture of shock as he exclaimed, "What the fuck happened out there?"

I shrunk into myself, not wanting to admit anything. "What... did it look like was happening?" I murmured, hoping I could use that as an excuse somehow.

Instead I had Adryan stare at me as if my face were peeling away from the bone. "You had a headless makuhita trying to kill you. A fucking _headless_ pokémon tried killing you! You're damned lucky Ripper was nearby – if you were on your own, you wouldn't be here right now!"

What I assumed to be his anger at my avoiding the question opened up a few question of my own. "What if Ripper hadn't been able to get rid of it?"

Chris gripped her arm stump. "You'd need another ghost to get rid of it. Dusknoir are able to... exorcise ghosts – for lack of a better word – instinctively. Ghosts can only be killed – or rather move on from the world – by two methods. Either forcibly by another ghost, or the ghost itself needs to choose to move on from the world."

I focused instead on Chris, rather than Ayd, who still looked like he wanted to strangle me for no doubt scaring him. "So Loki could have been able to get rid of it for me?"

She snorted softly. "Not without being taught specifically how to do so."

"You're still avoiding the question," Adryan pointed out flatly. "What happened out there?"

I felt my stomach flop as I looked at him. "I-uh, don't want to talk about it."

"What-" he hissed, though was cut off as Chris put her hand softly on his arm. She shook her head gently, effectively cutting him off. "Fine," he said sharply. "Whatever it was, it looked bad, alright? You were screaming your lungs out, there was a freaky dead makuhita trying to kill you, and none of my pokémon's attacks were harming the damn thing. It freaked the shit out of me, you understand that? I'd at least like to know the basis of how the fuck that all happened."

I looked up at him and offered a guilty look. "Maybe soon," I whispered, barely able to hear myself. Yet judging by the small nod, I knew he heard me too.

He glanced over at Chris and shared an unspoken conversation for a moment. "I'm going tomorrow morning," he told her. "Few things I want to sort out in Fairfrost, and there's a big tournament for any sort of ice pokémon going on there soon. Figured I'd enter Siren and see how she fares."

Chris nodded. "Anyone you want to take off my hands?"

He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. "I wouldn't mind having Ripper around for a while. Lucy too, I could do with training her."

"Help yourself," she said quickly. "I'll make a note of it when I've got time. Though can I have Hale and Apollo for a little bit? I've got a few bids coming through – same deal as always?"

"Sure thing," Ayd said, rubbing a finger gently over the poké balls on his belt. "I'll get them sent over for first thing in the morning. Though can you look after Siren and Leif for a bit? I think after being in caves for so long, without big bodies of sun or water has left them a little worse for wear."

"Only if you let me get a litter out of the both of them," offered Chris. "Even the zoos pay into six figures for lapras calves."

He nodded. "As long as they're willing to go through with it. But I think Siren isn't due for mating season for another few months."

"We do have a stock of hormones that could induce it in her," she said with a smirk. "But I won't do anything if either of you doesn't agree."

He shrugged. "I'm fine with it, if she is. But try to make sure it's after the tournament. I don't really want to enter her in a battle while she's ready to lay an egg." He stopped a moment and looked out towards a corner of the house. "So am I alright to see him?"

She nodded once more. "He's old enough now; you can take him if you want. He's just a little snappy – I think he's teething."

A grin blossomed on Ayd's face. "I dealt with a teething trapinch, I think I can manage this."

I stared after him as he left the room, their conversation completely lost on me. I guessed that they were arranging for some of his pokémon to be looked after by Chris, and for them to also mate and produce offspring for her to sell.

Though I had no idea where Fairfrost was, or what was meant to be there –aside from the ice pokémon gym – nor did I know who Apollo or Lucy were. I guessed that with Ayd still somewhat annoyed with me, I would't be getting any answers out of him about his pokémon – or more likely, I'd have my questions answered with a question. So instead of saying anything, I waited until Ayd had left the room to look over whatever he was so happy about seeing.

In doing so I found myself alone with Chris, who seemed to be in two minds about whether or not to grill me for the answers both her and Adryan no doubt wanted. Instead she merely gripped her stump once more and blew her fringe from her face. "You're sableye's a strange one," she said conversationally. "Most of the time, if their trainer's injured, a pokémon will defend them to the death from any outside help, or try and get help from anyone it thinks is trustworthy. Yours didn't do either of those."

I found my fingers softly running over his poké ball as I thought about it. "So what did he do then?"

"He tried calling out your other pokémon. Pokémon aren't meant to be able to use human-created technology, save for the smartest and most psychics, but your sableye went straight for your other pokémon's balls, as if it were trying to call them out to help." She made an amused sound and shrugged. "Though when he couldn't get them open, he tried gnawing them instead – he happened to go continually for two in particular. The one with your evolving lotad, and the third one on your bandolier."

I knew instantly that was Lacey's ball. I always kept them in one specific pattern, going down in order from the first pokémon I'd caught to the last. I couldn't fathom out why Loki would try to get Xander to help, but I assumed that he must have gone for Lacey because he knew she would be better at keeping away the makuhita than himself, or any of the others.

I knew then he had to be smarter than he let on. There was no way he could have chased after those two pokémon by sheer coincidence alone. The main problem with that would be figuring out how to get him to be smart all the time, rather than just when I wasn't conscious. It was something to add to the pile, with Lacey's murderous tendencies, as well as Erra's timidness.

"He must have been trying to get them to help then," I said, confirming Chris' suspicions. "We've pretty much learnt so far that the only people or pokémon we can trust are ourselves."

Chris put on a look of mock hurt. "So you're saying you don't trust me?"

I smirked. "I don't know you."

"Smart," she said, impressed. "Too many youngsters trust too freely, and they often end up with their pokémon being stolen, mugged, or worse."

I shrugged. "But then the opposite is that they don't trust anyone. You need to have some trust, even if it's just in your pokémon."

I had to laugh at myself. The thought of telling people to trust in their pokémon was such high hypocrisy to my upbringing. Yet at the same time, I felt that the words were right.

Chris smiled knowingly. "You know, I get the feeling that's more than you've let on about your journey to Adryan, and _he's_ supposed to be your friend. I must have some high privilege or something." She grinned again, and I knew she was trying to make light of the situation. However, when she caught sight of my more sombre expression, she sighed and glanced in the direction Ayd left.

"You freaked him out, you know?" she said, barely loud enough for me to even hear. "Even if you don't want to tell anyone about what really happened to cause it all, he still deserves some sort of explanation. I mean, it was _his_ pokémon that saved you, and he's still got Willow being looked after at the Littleroot lab, if only because you asked him not to have her around for a while – and you still haven't told him why about that yet either."

Her words burnt guilt into me, and I began to poke my big toe into the carpet, not wanting to look back up at her. "I don't want to talk about it," I whispered. "I just... I don't want to have to relive what happened again."

"That's fair enough," she said, her tone sympathetic and understanding. "I can't force you to do anything, but at the same time, you should know not to shut people out completely. Whatever you went through... it's obvious you need a friend."

"I suppose," I agreed. "So did he ask you to talk to me about all of this?" I asked.

She chuckled and shook her head. "No, I think he's too proud to ask for help. We talk, and I help that way, but he never really asks me to do anything for him. In reality, I'm just playing mum. I think I have done ever since him and Owen..." she smiled sadly, no doubt remembering their journeys. "Well, ever since I was travelling with those two goons. If nothing else, they helped me understand how much effort is needed to mother a creature, whether it's human or not."

I nodded slowly. "That reminds me," I said, and pointed back into the corridor. "Outside the room I woke up in, there's a wet yellow puddle."

She groaned instantly. "You didn't think to tell me sooner? I swear, the Mauville council must have put in carpeted floors just to appease their sadism. The moment I have enough money, we're getting laminated wooden floors. And then I'm going to have that little electrike brainwashed so it uses a human toilet."

"Lacey can do that already," I said without thinking, and caught myself a moment later. Chris was staring at me, amazed, and I felt my cheeks burn crimson. "I didn't teach her how to," I told her quickly. "I only found out a few days after I caught her – long story short, she got a bad case of the runs, and locked herself in the bathroom in our room on the ship to Dewford. Before then, I had no idea."

Chris stared at me a moment longer. "Whoever accomplished that is a genius. Seriously, you have no idea how many scientific papers are published each year with people trying to train certain pokémon to use toilets, and the various methods needed for each. Whoever they were, if they let people know about that, they could have made a killing."

I grimaced at her choice of words. Thankfully she didn't notice as she excused herself to clean up the electrike puddle, muttering something about finding something that would be able to clean the carpets.

Alone, I started to wonder what to do. It was dark outside, which meant that I couldn't really take any of my pokémon outside to train them. I hadn't yet found out how long I'd been out for, so had no clue how long it had been since my pokémon had run any drills, and how far behind they were.

I did know, however, that I would be leaving the next morning, regardless of whether Ayd wanted to travel with me or not. The way he'd mentioned he was leaving seemed to be a sly dig at me, if only in the way that he continually passed over mention of me. It was either him being childish and speaking loudly enough for me to overhear his plans, and just go along with him, or him dropping the hint that he was leaving the day after without me.

Either way, it really meant I was being pressured into at least saying something about what had happened. I really didn't want to have to relive the experience again, but I knew if I didn't, I could end up going mad. Or I could possibly end up with another shedinja trying to murder me, or possibly another demon trying to avenge those I killed.

Regardless, I knew I was going to need a friend. If not for my own safety, then for my own sanity. And if I was to be completely honest with myself, I knew that Adryan was my best friend, and that I could stomach reliving the experience again if it meant I could keep his friendship.

Though the main problem I had was how I was going to go about explaining everything to Ayd. I knew I couldn't very well tell him that I had murdered Aaron, though the part about the demons would no doubt be easier to explain, if not harder for me to actually say.

It was a conversation I definitely wasn't looking forward to.

It seemed I would have some small reprieve from it, however, when Chris walked back in, carrying a bucket filled with soapy water and sponges.

"You should get some sleep," she told me as she walked back into the room, placing the bucket down in the corner. "It's nearing midnight, and no doubt you'll be leaving with Adryan first thing in the morning. Feel free to use the same room I left you in before – it's the second guest room anyway. I'm going to bed soon; the guys on the late shift started two hours ago, and they're working through until dawn."

That caught my attention. "How many people do you have working here then?"

She smiled. "A number. Aside from myself, there's six supervisors, who work in pairs, changing every eight hours. After that, most people here are students from the local veterinaries, or even from further afield. There's a number of vet colleges all over Hoenn, and a number of breeder's colleges too. I take on a number of them as unpaid interns for three months at a time – they work for me, and get another reference for all their job applications. There's also a few people like Amanda, who are locals interested in becoming breeders, but have no one willing to give them the experience." She sighed, brushed some stray hair from her face then placed her hands on her hips. "Then there's others, but I suspect that you'll be using stories of my accountants, marketing managers and lawyers as a reason to stay awake."

I blinked. "That's a lot of people," I said, simply. "And it wouldn't be me trying to stay awake; I'm not tired anyway."

She laughed. "You fainted, and were out for nearly ten hours. Being unconscious isn't the same as sleeping – while you're out either way, the former leaves you without feeling restless, and instead more tired." She waved her real hand in a shooing gesture. "Get to bed. If you really want to ask me questions, bug me in the morning. Though preferably not until after nine. I want to be able to sleep in until eight tomorrow before I start doing all the admin before even starting to work on the pokémon at about midday. Just five more years, and hopefully the place will be able to run itself. And then I can start on my real dreams."

My curiosity was spiked. "What's that then?"

She grinned. "Creating an army of fire-breathing crobat."

I laughed nervously at her comparative lack of amusement. She kept a straight face up until my laughter died off, and offered me only a small grin. The woman was decidedly insane, and I could whole-heartedly see her leading an army of fire-breathing bats. I wasn't sure what was scarier; the mental image of her leading the bat-army, or the fact that it was so easy to imagine.

"Well as long as you promise to let me have one, I won't call the pokémon protection agencies on you," I joked. "But I won't keep you up; I'll head off to bed, even if I don't end up sleeping." I turned to leave, though thought better of it and quickly wrapped my arms around Chris in a hug. She looked completely shocked for a moment, and more confused than intrigued. "I just realised I should thank you for everything..." I mumbled sheepishly. "And well... just saying it seemed kinda useless... and I couldn't think of anything else to do to show my thanks... and well-"

"_Enough_ with the embarrassed teenager, _please_," Chris laughed, waving a hand at me. "You're welcome. You're Ayd's friend, so I guess by some strange extension you're also mine. Though one small warning; don't make a habit of surprise hugging me. My robo-arm's still not completely tuned, so if you surprise me, you might end up with a metal gut-punch."

I flinched at the thought. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." It was entirely possible, I reasoned, after seeing her accidentally punch a doorframe just because she was angry. If she was surprised, I figured that had to be the least damage she could do.

"Well, I'll try to keep the damage to a minimum," she told me with a grin. "After all, if you're willing not to tell the cops about my fire-breathing bats, I think I might have some use for you." She laughed to herself before sobering and removing her artificial arm. "Come see me in the morning before you leave though. If nothing else but to show good manners in saying goodbye."

I told her I would before bidding her goodnight and heading back to my room. Just outside it the carpet was still covered in a small amount of clear, soapy bubbles, enough to provide me with the mental image of Chris going crazy in scrubbing the carpet clean.

Though it made me realise I had yet to see the little carpet-stainer since it had managed to mark my boots.

As long as Lacey hadn't murdered it, there wasn't really much of a problem with that. I wouldn't have minded taking the creature with me, as I decided that training an infant to battle would probably be easier than convincing Erra to stop being as afraid with new things.

Though I reassured myself that after getting Loki through a blood thirst, and managing to get Lacey on side, dealing with a timid magnemite shouldn't be much of a problem.

It did mean though, that I would have even more hassles on my journey. I still hadn't figured out what the hell I needed to do, nor had I managed to find any leads on the strange man I'd overheard on the boat to Slateport. Collecting information for myself was so new, and so strange. I was used to being nothing more than a gun – I had the information and orders given to me, rather than running recon for someone else. As far as I was aware, people in my time used to find out everything they needed to by listening in to conversations, as well as finding the truth in rumours and idle gossip.

The problem was I had no idea where to find such things in the world I was currently in. Granted, I did have the one idea of using the internet again, but I knew it wouldn't be feasible to continually access it whenever I was on the road – and I was still a little skittish of using it after the last time.

At least the problem of the demonic makuhita had been solved for me. I did feel somewhat safer knowing that it was gone, and that I no longer needed to have Lacey or Loki with me at all times to stop it coming near me.

Yet at the same time, I didn't like the feeling of safety it brought. It was like the calm in a storm – a quiet where it was too quiet. I'd gone through it before when I first came to the world; seeing dangers where apparently there were none, and it seemed I would have to readjust yet again.

Though when a shadow loomed into my room from the doorway, I leapt out of my skin in fright, clutching wildly at my poké balls. I nearly fell over my own feet as I searched frantically for my bag, only to hear Adryan sniggering lightly behind my back.

My ears burnt in shame as I turned around to face him. He was stood there, leaning against my doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing only a baggy undershirt and boxers. He looked nothing near intimidating or frightening, and I felt myself wanting to laugh at my own stupidity for it all.

"Good to know my pj's are frightening," he drawled, leaning his head against the wooden frame. "I'll be sure to remember that the next time a hungry pokémon is wanting to eat me." He laughed to himself. "Though, I think the sight of anyone stripping down in front of you is likely to be creepy and frightening. Or interesting, depending on who it is."

I ignored his musings with a roll of my eyes. "What's up?"

"Nothing," he said, shrugging. "I just wanted to see if you were more willing to say something since Chris isn't around."

My heart dropped into my stomach as I turned away, shaking my head. "I... I don't want to," I mumbled, staring down at my navel. "I just... not yet."

Behind me, Ayd made a loud, annoyed sigh. "Look, I know that whatever you went through was probably scary as hell, but you can't expect me to keep trusting your word on everything. You've still yet to tell me you don't want Willow anywhere near you, which means I've got to keep her at the lab in Littleroot. And do you have any idea how hard it is to convince a gardevoir to stay away for any amount of time? They're clingy as hell once you've trained them enough. And added to that, she can teleport here anytime she wants to, if she put her mind to it. You're lucky she hasn't warped herself here at any opportunity."

I shuddered at the thought of the demon appearing in my room in the blink of an eye. "Just... just trust me," I told him. "I'll explain it to you soon enough."

"That's the thing," he said, sharply. "You said I've got to trust you, but I don't know how I'm meant to if I don't know anything about what's going on. All you've told me is that you caught your nuzleaf and magnemite while you were away. There's only so much blind trust I can afford."

"So what do you want then?" I hissed as I spun round on the spot. "A deep, complex conversation on my life before you can afford trusting me? Does that mean I shouldn't trust you until I know everything that's happened in all twenty years you've been alive?"

He clicked his tongue. "That's not what I mean and you know it," he said coldly. "Believe it or not, I _do_ trust you, whether it's through blind optimism or something else. But the main problem is Willow doesn't. And while I don't know what's caused that, I can't reassure her unless I know what's going on. You could have put me or Ripper in danger when that makuhita came after you, and I've got nothing to reassure him or Willow that something like that will happen again."

I looked up at him through my hair, dumbfounded. His demon didn't trust me? I figured it had to be because it could sense I had killed two of its kind. But it was obvious Ayd took the instincts of his pokémon to heart, and he would end up distrusting me and leaving me if I didn't give him an explanation. And I knew that I couldn't afford for that to happen.

He sighed at my silence and dropped his arms to the side. "I do trust you, and you're one of my best friends, but you need to understand; my pokémon come first. I can't risk putting them in danger, and I can't wait around forever with you, waiting for an answer." He shook his head and looked away for a moment. "That's why I'm heading off to Fairfrost tomorrow. Not only for the competition, but to give you some time. It's obvious that you don't want to talk about anything, but you haven't even given me an inkling as to what's going on. You _are_ my friend, but if you're putting my pokémon in danger needlessly, and not letting me know anything about it, then I can't risk them being around you."

There was a pregnant silence between us. I kept my face to the floor, wars raging within me as to whether or not I should say anything. Finally, when I heard Adryan sigh angrily and saw his shadow move, I broke.

"Dewford," I whispered in a hoarse voice. It got his attention, and he froze in the doorway, head turning back to face me.

Just the memory of it alone was making my blood freeze and tears build up in my eyes. But I knew I had to push past it. "Dewford," I whispered again, hating my voice for breaking, and cursing the tear that broke free from my eye. "Check... check what's been happening in Dewford. I don't want to talk about it yet... but if you do that... you'll have an idea of what's happened."

He nodded slowly, uncertainly. "Alright," he whispered, unsure. "I'll check that out. I haven't exactly caught up on the world's news since I've been back, but I'll have a look while I'm in Fairfrost. I'm going to be in Sandstream in two weeks; it's in the desert east of Lavaridge. I say you go to Lavaridge first, battle the gym there, and then head onto Sandstream afterwards. I'll meet you there, and no matter what I find out, good or bad, I'll listen to your side of the story."

I sniffed and wiped my nose with a palm. "Thanks," I croaked. "I just... I need some time to be able to say it."

"I'll leave the same time as you tomorrow," he told me, changing the subject, though still speaking seriously. "If nothing else, I'll see you off. I'm sorry if you wanted a few days to laze around-"

"No, it's alright," I said, cutting him off. "I need to get going anyway, and I probably would have left tomorrow if you wanted to stay – Chris is your friend, I figured you'd want some time to catch up without me being around and making things awkward."

He shrugged. "Chris is working almost all the time anyway, so mostly we end up catching up in sporadic, few hour sessions before or after she's working." He stopped for a moment, went to walk away then caught himself. "You're... alright now though, right?" he asked.

I shrugged. Honestly, I felt pretty far from it, yet it was the best I'd felt in a while. "More or less."

He nodded, then rubbed the back of his neck with a grin. "I just realised that it's taken me until now to actually ask that. But you do know... whatever happened... whatever you did, I'm still your friend, right?"

I doubted he still would be after he found out I was a killer. "I know," I said, nodding.

"Good," he said, then laughed. "Now we've dealt with all that emotional, feelings sort of thing, I'm gonna get a beer. Then eat my own body weight in pizza and shout at football players on the television."

I laughed and bid him goodnight after that. Once he was gone did I only start to really think about how I would manage to explain everything that happened in Dewford, and possibly more than that; get the guts to.

Needless to say, such thoughts kept me from sleeping for a while that night.

* * *

The next morning, I found myself dealing with Erra yet again clung to my head, though this time at least I knew it was from a nervousness towards Chris.

Or maybe it was the fact that my boots had been cleaned, and now smelt strongly of some sort of bleach. Or fabric cleaner. I didn't know what it was, but knew it was strong enough to quite possibly scare off any small pokémon scampering around. Chris was to blame - or to thank - for that too.

"Those little shocks are a result of her nervousness," she explained as the magnemite on my head buzzed low and fast. "You know like how humans get all shaky when they're afraid, well some electrical pokémon can accidentally discharge – pervert!" she snapped at Ayd as he laughed, throwing her spoon at him. "Anyway," she said, pretending such an event had never happened. "She's giving off random shocks because she's afraid. You'll have to install some confidence into her; only use her in familiar situations, or locations where there's only you and your pokémon, then slowly introduce her into new things."

I nodded as I reached up and petted the electrical insect on my head. In all honesty, I did want her to man up and face everything without fear... but I also knew that her nervousness was probably somewhat my fault. If Lacey hadn't been out and delivered such a _brutal_ beating towards her, she probably wouldn't be as afraid. I'd just have to get her trust, make sure she learnt that I wasn't going to make her suffer a repeat of before if she did wrong, and hopefully get her able to battle.

"And try to get your nuzleaf to be calm around her. Better yet, have your nuzleaf defend her from something, and then that way, she should learn that she isn't going to suffer again," Chris instructed me, as she rummaged around in a drawer for another spoon for her breakfast. "More than that, try to remember that – _Adryan, did you just put that spoon in my hair?"_ she shrieked, spinning around to face him, hand clutching wildly at the spoon in her hair as Ayd hid his laugh behind a hand._ "It has yoghurt on it you creep!"_ she all but screamed, and then dumped the remainder of her yoghurt in his own hair, making him laugh between screams of protest.

"Alright, alright!" he laughed, holding his hands up in protest as pink gloop slithered down his head. "I give! I give! Truce?" he offered, holding his arms out.

Chris glared at him a moment before she sighed and rolled her eyes. "Alright," she said, going in for the hug. Though to my surprise, instead of hugging her, Ayd stuck his hands into his hair, flung the yoghurt at her and then wiped the remains on his hands in her face.

"Sucker!" he yelled over his shoulder as he sprinted towards the bathroom.

Not that I could blame him. If Chris was any angrier, it wouldn't surprise me if the yoghurt started steaming dry.

"Every time, I swear," Chris growled as she wiped her face with a dishcloth. "Great," she groaned, pulling a strand of hair down to eye-level. "That means I've got to look after the pokémon with my hair smelling of artificial strawberries. I wonder how many of them are going to try and eat my head..."

I laughed silently, not wanting to upset Erra anymore. The whole time she'd been randomly sending bolts of static into me, and I was completely thankful that at least she wasn't strong enough to produce anything more powerful.

"You two seem close," I observed as I handed her a damp cloth.

She thanked me for it and shrugged. "I suppose," she said, pulling violently at the food in her hair. "But we did travel together for three years. A year in Sinnoh, then another in Johto, and finally Kanto. When you're with someone day-in, day-out for three years, you do become close. He's one of my best friends, and he's like a brother to me. So we do end up aimlessly playing about or flirting sometimes – even though that _is_ several levels of weird, seeing as he's like my brother...

"Anyway," she said abruptly, shaking her head as she handed me a small card. "My number," she explained as I looked at the card. "Sorry it's a business card, and seems so informal, but I don't make a habit of giving out my number randomly. Well-" she blushed violently, "-except for guys with certain accents. But yeah, I'm giving you that, just in case, you know, you want to talk, or there's something you want to know, or anything like that."

I nodded as I pulled out my own phone and added the number. "Thanks. I mean, there's no need for you to give me this or, you know-"

"Embarrassed teenager!" Chris interrupted in singsong. As quickly as I stopped talking, she started laughing. "Sorry," she said quickly. "But seriously, what's all that about? You don't seem to be that way around anyone else. And apparently, you weren't like that around Amanda – speaking of, I would advise you not trying to sleep with her just for the notch on your bedpost," she warned, and I couldn't help but feel afraid of the woman. It wasn't because she was scary, but more that she had a sort of protective sister air about her.

I feigned ignorance as best I could. "What do you mean?"

She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at me. "You know _exactly _what I mean. I'm not going to interfere, and I'm not going to say who she should and shouldn't date, but she hasn't had a boyfriend before, and I don't want her romantic imagery squashed by a guy who is out for only one night of fun."

I nodded vigorously in response. The action caused Erra to buzz loudly in my ears, and instantly I stopped, fearing an electric shock.

"Good," said Chris, firmly. "But back to what I was saying before; don't worry about calling me, or even turning up randomly if you need to. Just... be careful, alright? I don't want this to be a repeat of last time."

My mind was blank for a moment as I tried to work out what she meant. Then like a tonne of bricks, my brain hit me with the conclusion that she thought Adryan may end up killing me too.

If anything, I was insulted at the thought.

"It won't," I promised her.

She relaxed visibly at that. "Good. And don't be expecting any discounts from me either. Unless you become like family, or I use your pokémon to breed, you're not getting anything less than full price! Or _maybe_ mate's rates... if you remember to bring me a nice bottle of wine or two."

"Aw, so no free psychics?" I whined, shamelessly.

She laughed outright at that. "You wish! Psychics are some of the hardest pokémon to breed, as well as some of the hardest to look after. Added to that, I've only got two in at the moment; both baby ralts."

I shuddered on the spot. "I'll pass thanks. I really don't want any demon babies."

That made Chris laugh, though when she caught sight of how serious I was, she quickly quieted. "Well, anyway, psychics are hard to breed, if only because both genders will only mate with pokémon they choose to. Of course, that means half the time I've got two pokémon I _really_ want to breed and make brilliant offspring, but then they go after the silly, drooling slowpoke in the corner, or something. They're like people in a way; you want nothing more than the gorgeous guy or girl, but they go for the shallowest girl around with the biggest tits, or the fittest guy with the biggest wallet."

"Not everyone's like that though," I pointed out.

"Maybe," she agreed, shrugging. "But I'm the girl with one arm. There aren't many guys out there who can look past the missing arm." She sighed and shook her head. "Anyway, enough of my moaning-" she nodded to the hallway over my shoulder. "King Freak is here, so I'm guessing you two are heading off now?"

I turned around to find Ayd standing behind me, caught red-handed, trying to attack me with his damp towel.

"I wasn't doing anything," he said, hiding the towel behind his back and pretending to look innocent.

"Right," I drawled. "Though if you had of succeeded, you'd have only made the insect on my head electrocute us both anyway." Above my ears, Erra clicked in either agreement, or something else altogether. Either way, I used it as an agreement.

He however, glared at the insect on my head. "That thing is evil," he decided, folding his arms and grinning. "You're creating an army of diabolical pokémon, all out for my blood, aren't you? You've got Loki, who always hisses at me, and now you've got this magnemite that keeps giving me a creepy one-eyed stare."

My face fell blank. "She _has_ only one eye."

"Still creepy."

I rolled my eyes. "Then what about Ripper? He has one eye, which also functions as a _red_ torchlight. _And_ he speaks in an old Sevii accent."

That stopped them both short. One of Ayd's arms fell limp by his side, the other still over his chest. "He... spoke to you?" he asked, as if he'd never heard the creature speak before.

I nodded uncertainly. "Yeah... so? He speaks to you, doesn't he?"

"Ripper doesn't speak to many people," Chris explained. "Aside from me and Adyran, he's only ever spoken to one or two people. Apparently he only talks to those are 'important to the...' something that begins with 't'," she finished uncertainly.

Ayd glanced at her, confused. "I thought it was an 'l'. Or maybe it's both. But the point remains; it's something that he actually spoke to you."

I blushed crimson. "That's nice and all, but can you both stop staring at me? I feel like I should be put on display in a museum or something."

Ayd's grin turned into a smirk. "Ah, you'd be perfect in the memorial displays in Mount. Pyre! I can see it now, 'A creepy trainer, and creepy team, forever immortalised in stone.' And then we can tell the kids that the spirit of you and your pokémon will stalk them forever if they daresay your name three times in the mirror. Which means that people will fear you and your name, and after a few years, none shall say or know it, all because of one little stone inscription."

Then to top it off, he actually did an evil laugh. I blinked and gave Chris a side-long look, though she could only pretend not to laugh in the face of Ayd's weird stupidity.

"You're insane," I told him.

"I'm a genius," he retorted. "I just don't have the success to legally qualify as one."

"And I wonder why I no man I meet sticks around after meeting you," Chris bemoaned. "There's only so much insanity they can put up with."

"That's nothing to do with it," he shot back. "They just take one look at me and fall in love, leaving you because they can't face life without me."

She snorted. "Yeah, of course. You keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile, back in the real world, I'll be lifting heavy boxes with my remaining arm, and you'll be doing a different sort of one-armed workout."

I howled with laughter as Adryan turned beat red, his mouth open ever so slightly. I just wished that I could take Chris along with me, if only because she was the only person I'd met who was capable of reducing him to speechlessness.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Ayd grumbled, burying his chin and as much of his face as he could in his scarf. "Perhaps I'll be able to sweep up the remains of my dignity and glue them back into something vaguely resembling pride."

She smiled. "And I'll be right here, waiting to smash it back to smithereens once more."

Watching and listening to them both, there was a large part of me that couldn't help but feel jealous. I'd never really known such friendship, or even experienced it. I'd formed bonds with fellow survivors in my own time, but we'd all learnt quickly, or been taught not to get too attached to people. Attachments generally led to people doing stupid things and dying, or to heartbreak when people died. In effect, we were always closing ourselves off, driving away pain before it would be able to hurt us.

Watching Chris and Ayd made me realise how wrong those beliefs I'd grown up on were. If we'd had such bonds keeping us to people, I knew that we would have fought better, and probably prospered in a world ravaged by war, disease and death. By being cold and callow towards other people, we'd probably destroyed our will to change the world around.

"Aw, look, he's upset about leaving already."

I snapped back to attention at the sound of Ayd's voice, and found that we were stood on the porch outside Chris' house. I blinked and rubbed at my eyelids, wondering just how long I'd zoned out for. Erra's clicking on my head was less sporadic, and her shocks were reduced to every once in a while, rather than every so often, making me assume she felt more confident in the outside.

I shook my head. "Not that. Just thinking."

"No wonder why he seemed so deep in concentration," Ayd quipped. "It must take a lot of brain power for you to do that."

"Not as much as it does for you," I shot back.

"And yet again, I feel like a mother with her two children," Chris sighed. "Take care, you hear?" she said as she pulled me into a hug. "If I hear something about how you've been mauled by a wild slakoth, I'm going to be disappointed."

It took me a moment to place the creatures. Wild sloth-like pokémon that moved so slowly, algae could actually form on the sweat on their skin.

Yeah, if I got killed by one of those, I'd be pretty damn disappointed too.

"And you," she said as she swept Ayd into a hug, squeezing him tight. "No weird trips into caves this time, alright? And I've got two weeks holiday I've arranged for myself if you want to stay for longer next time?"

A big grin bloomed across his face. "You bet. I'll give you a call sometime tomorrow night, alright?"

"Sure," she whispered, letting go of him. "Stay safe, alright?" She gave him one last smile – one I could have sworn had some sort of sadness to it – before she shut the door.

"Huh," I grunted as we walked away.

"What?" Ayd asked, complete obliviousness clouding her face.

"Just then," I said as I frowned, placing my fist under my chin. "Just then, when she said goodbye... she looked almost sad."

He looked at me, then back at Chris' house, before settling on me once more. "Are you sure?" he asked, unconvinced. "She seemed fine to me. And I've known her for going on five years now."

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe it's one of those things that only an outsider can see?"

"Maybe," he agreed, still unsure. "So don't those hurt?" he asked randomly, then gestured to Erra afterwards. "Every minute or so, I keep seeing you twitch from little static shocks. Surely you must feel them?"

I waited until the next one, and although I felt myself jump a little, there wasn't any pain to go with it. "Nope," I said, shaking my head delicately. "They're big enough to make me jump, but little enough so that I don't feel any pain. It's like one of those things; you know when you put your hand to something hot, and you keep flinching away because of the pain of the heat? But then, after enough times, the heat doesn't hurt you, but you can still feel it?"

He nodded. "I understand. I sorta had the same thing with my electrical pokémon. Except she was a lot stronger than your magnemite, so I had to go around wearing rubber boots _and _gloves whenever I was near her." He laughed at something and put his hands behind his head. "It was in Vermillion I bought it, seeing as they're sort of high-up with electric pokémon care and that. The salesman tried offering me some sort of rubber pants to wear. I don't care if her electricity was powerful enough to kill me, even if I wore them – there was _no_ way I was going to chance dying and being found wearing rubber pants!"

I grinned at him. "Well, it's that, or they would have found your porn stash in your bag. What one would be worse?"

He glared at me, groaned, buried his face in his hands and then laughed. "Why, why, _why_ did I ever let you meet Chris? She was the only person that made me suffer with those sort of digs, and now she's corrupted you too! I swear, the moment my pokémon start making those jokes, I'm going to become a hermit and live in a cave for the rest of my life."

I tapped my finger against my chin. "So how exactly do you teach pokémon to speak, anyway?"

He looked at me, expecting a genuine question. However, when he caught sight of my grin, he groaned once more and let out a string of curses.

"So you're okay with me going for a bit then?" he asked.

"Mh," I grunted. "I need some time. I... some stuff _did_ happen, but I never really wanted to let anyone know about it." I felt a big lump in my throat, and yet again was forced to take a deep breath to calm my emotions. At best, all I could do was laugh as tears built in my eyes again. "See?" I laughed more than cried as I pointed to my face. "Just thinking about it makes me like this."

He nodded quickly, no doubt scared by my sudden display of emotion. "Alright. So, you know I've got to get to Fairfrost, and-"

"It's alright; get going," I told him, even as I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. "Just because I'm like this doesn't mean I can't find my way back to Mauville. I've got a magnemite on my head, which, if nothing else can be used as a scout. I'll see you in about two weeks."

"Two weeks," he repeated as he tossed a poké ball forth, bringing out his flygon in a bright white light. She flapped her wings happily, stretching her neck out and letting him scratch at the softer scales underneath. The sound she made was almost like purring, except it was still frightening, and I half expected fire to burst out of her mouth at any random moment.

"You'll be alright, won't you?" he asked as he put an arm around my shoulders, somehow avoiding the insect drooping down the back of my neck. "There won't be any more crazy shit that you'll be afraid to relive and tell me?"

"I hope not," I muttered, answering as honestly as I could. "I think if any more shit happens to me, I might just end up living in a padded cell."

That at least, made him laugh. "Well, you know five percent of all trainers do end up needing some sort of professional psychiatric help."

"Really?" I asked. It seemed believable enough, after all.

"Yurp," he said, grinning like a fool. "And on top of that, sixty percent of all statistics are made up, though it's gospel that twenty-three percent of people that meet me want to spend every moment of their lives worshipping my body."

I snorted and shoved him towards his dragon. "You're an ass."

"Maybe so, but it's the first time I've seen you actually smile since yesterday," he countered.

"Really?" I asked, and couldn't help but smile again. "Well that's nothing to do with you. I just think Irenui's a brilliant creature that inspires joy to everyone."

At that, Adryan laughed derisively. His flygon, however, preened at the compliment, and I found myself with a grinning flygon – or as close to it as I ever thought possible – cooing up to me like a regular housecat.

"Brilliant," Ayd grumbled. "And now you've inflated her ego. When she decides that she's the queen of Hoenn, I'm placing all the blame on you."

I bowed overdramatically to the pokémon. "My queen."

"Please stop," Adryan groaned. He reached out and rubbed the back of his pokémon's neck, leaving his hand softly on her back. "You ready to fly girl?"

She reared back and growled something low, quick and quite frightening. Though it must have been positive as Adryan mounted her without complaint from the pokémon.

"Jealous, aren't you?" he asked, grinning at me. "You'll get your own flier soon enough. Though you'll need to buy a specific saddle for whatever it is first. It takes a long while to get a pokémon trained and to trust you enough to let you ride bareback."

It was another small downer he provided me with. Somehow it always seemed that he could give me good news wrapped in a bundle of bad news and major effort.

Which of course, would eventually make any bad news he had to give me all the worse.


	28. Advancements

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Advancements

* * *

**

_Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful _~ Mark Victor Hansen

**-O-O-O-**

"_Pokémon are strange things. Some become instantly subservient when they're captured, some rebel as much as they can, and some will just kill their trainers on the spot._

_Yet for all their hatred of the poké ball, pokémon can see it as a great solace from the world. They retreat in their for safety when they could otherwise be killed, and will – if possible – hide within the poké ball when they begin to evolve._

_But for all the research conducted into poké balls, from their mechanisms of how they work, all the way through to how durable they are, there has been one area of research barely touched upon; what happens to a pokémon inside a poké ball, if the ball itself is damaged or destroyed?_

_It is an area of research looked down upon by many ethical committees, if only for the usage of live rattata in the experiments._

_However, such research must be conducted. Is it not better for a few pokémon to die in lab tests for us to know the limits of our poké ball's strengths? Would we not rather have had a meaningless lab-rat die, rather than our own beloved pokémon who we'd raised for many years with love and care?_

_These are our reasons for carrying out such research. And these are our reasons for why we publish this report."_

- Excerpt 1/3 from '_The Limits of Poké Ball_ _Technology_' by Dr. R.E. Fuji and Dr. P.H. Blaine. _(February 1__st__, 3004)_

**-O-O-O- **

It felt decidedly strange to be travelling on my own again. Only a day had passed since I was left to make my own way once more, and I'd found myself continually missing the presence of human company.

Or more than that, the advice from others on what to do with Erra.

I'd noticed before that she was a lot calmer when it was only myself, Xander and Loki around, and that her static twinges were almost non-existent. Though when there was a loud noise, a stranger, or Lacey around, she would revert back to her twitchy, electric-discharging old self. If nothing else, it made me realise that in addition to being timid, she was downright terrified of anything that could potentially harm her.

There was also the nice little bit of knowledge that it was, at least partially my fault.

I knew that at some point, I would need to somehow have Lacey save her from a stronger pokémon, or a similar situation. The main problem with that was actually finding a pokémon that I could make Erra fight against, and then be able to get Lacey in without the pokémon killing anyone.

Like most things in my life, it was such a _simple_ task.

Xander had still yet to re-emerge from his poké ball, and Loki was still managing to cause bedlam, even in the middle of nowhere. I also had Lacey sneaking off every so often, coming back with blood lining her hands, or patches over her skin – once even with flesh between her teeth. It was really no wonder why Erra was frightened around us all, and I'd still yet to see any success in getting Lacey to apologise to the creature.

It was all work, and I'd yet to see any rewards.

I groaned as I pulled myself to a stop, deciding to sit down on the floor itself and pried my boots off, rubbing at my sore feet. I'd been told by one of the nurses in the Mauville pokémon centre that Lavaridge was a fortnight's journey away, given measures that people usually travelled in groups of three, and only walked for about seven to eight hour a day. Of course, on my own, I reasoned I could move a lot quicker, and would travel greater distances in the same amount of time.

I fiddled around in my backpack and tried to pull out a map. I'd tried using the one supposedly built into the pokédex, but all I'd gained was a wall of text telling me a load of useless instructions, and more predominantly, to go online to learn how to use the map feature. I felt like throwing the damn thing into a ravine when I saw that, and instead swore at it for a good ten minutes before buying a map – it was a good thing I'd been in town at the time.

Small bits of sand flew around in the air around us, occasionally settling on the map. I knew more and more was getting stuck in my hair, if Lacey's was anything to go by. As I sat down and tried to navigate, she kept watch while trying to pry the little pieces of yellow dirt out of her bright white hair. If nothing else, it meant that we were getting closer to the desert that existed along this stretch of road.

With the map unfolded on my lap, I began tracing roughly how far we'd managed to travel. It seemed as if we'd made it almost three-quarters of the way towards the desert, and it looked like from there we would need to head west as soon as the ground became the slightest bit sandy. I reasoned it would probably take us another two days to reach Mount Chimney, and take the cable car up towards the top. Lavaridge itself was set on the volcano itself, far enough away from the lava, yet close enough to enjoy the hot springs, and spanned the distance from the low-lying floors up to mountainous cliffs.

Thankfully the main area trainers needed to frequent was nearby the cable car. It seemed that every town followed the same sort of idea; either the trainer areas where on the outskirts of town, or where in the middle, with the easiest access in and out of the town. It was probably both to minimise damage to the town itself and the people within, and so that people could live away from the hustle and bustle, where they would no doubt be likely to hear pokémon fighting day-in, day-out.

"We've got about three days until we hit the next town," I said, looking up at Lacey. She spared me a glance, nodded, and then turned back to picking sand from her hair. "There's a network of tunnels that go through the volcano apparently. It's supposedly blindingly hot in there, yet still cool enough for us to travel through and survive quite well." I leant forwards and placed my hands around my ankles. "You think we should give it a try? We might be able to get a good fiery pokémon."

She grunted something and shrugged at me. There was a noise in the grasses that caught both our attentions, and we both froze, staring at the source of the sound for a good moment. Only when it had passed did we both relax, and then Lacey grunted something again. Obviously she didn't care much either way.

I rubbed my feet again, trying to ease the pain. "I might need you to go off somewhere with Erra. I face, I might try to get you take her in there for a bit." I saw her turn her head slightly, able to focus on me and our surroundings at the same time. "She's terrified of you, if only because of that beating you gave her when we first caught her. She needs to know that you can be trusted to defend her. Otherwise, she'll never be able to fight, and we'd be worse off letting her back into the wild. You think you can manage that without killing her?"

She pulled her lip back in distaste a moment, grunted something, though nodded afterwards. She pointed up to the sky, moved her hand from the western horizon to the eastern one, and then held up two, scrawny fingers.

Two days. It was what she was saying she would need, if I wanted to her to carry out the plan. I had no doubt she was trying to get some extra time away from me, possibly to murder a few pokémon, possibly to escape off into the wilds. I knew that she _could_ use the time to escape; it wouldn't be hard for her to kill Erra and escape. But I knew that letting her explore an area full of heat, fire, and no source of sunlight would mean that she wouldn't survive long, if she did decide to run.

I knew that she was still resentful to being a trainer pokémon, and would most likely try to escape if she could. I also knew that she wasn't an idiot, and wouldn't try to escape in an area she wouldn't be likely to survive in.

At least, I thought that most of the time. Occasionally I would see her look at me with some sort of sadness, yet one it seemed she was never suffering from. Other times it was pity, and then back to disdain or begrudging respect. The latter two made me think she would try to escape, yet the two former did make me think she would stick around.

"Two days then," I allowed her. "As long as you come back with Erra alive. Try not to freak her out anymore though," I added with a smirk. "If she comes back a complete state, afraid of even a slight breeze, I think it'd be a favour to put her out of her misery. I'll trust that to your judgement though."

I think something like surprise hit her eyes. No doubt she would have been surprised; I'd gone from distrusting her completely, to trusting her with not only my pokémon's lives, but mine as well. And now, I was trusting her enough to call whether or not one of my pokémon would be better off dead if circumstances permitted it.

To tell the truth, if circumstances were different, I wouldn't have trusted her. But I was at my wit's end with trying to get her to get over her fears. I hadn't tried much, couldn't think of much, and didn't want to wait forever. Since I was back on my own, my mind was constantly abuzz with theories and suggestions as to what I could save the world. Yet again I was drawing blanks, and even with talking with Erica, I'd managed to gain no insight.

I was back to thinking that I had to already know what I needed to do. That meant that needed to sort out everything I knew of my own history, and try to figure out what could be the biggest cause of it all.

I decided I'd try and work on it whilst my pokémon where running drills. I snatched Xander's ball off my bandolier and glanced at it. The glowing light on it had got brighter, though it still wasn't that noticeable in the daylight. Maybe at night it would be enough to act as a tiny torch.

It made me wonder about the light; did it get brighter, the closer the pokémon was to fully evolving? Chris said something about there being a lot of energy being given off during it; therefore it had to mean that brighter light meant more energy. It also probably meant that stronger pokémon would give off more energy, which could mean I'd end up with bright, lit up targets on my chest.

It almost was enough to make me not want any stronger pokémon.

_Almost._

I'd survived all the shit I'd been through up until then, I was damned sure I could survive having a few glowing poké balls on my person.

Though I figured with my luck, I'd never get any strong pokémon. Instead I'd just end up with a load of epileptic hoppip, or a magikarp that couldn't swim.

At least it would be better than undead makuhitas.

* * *

It was increasingly obvious that we were getting closer to Lavaridge town. The sheer _heat_ that surrounded us all was unreal! I was reduced to nothing more than a sweaty pile of goo quite often, and ended up routinely having to sit in the shade, or just in some small puddle or river that I could find. My pokémon were faring no better it seemed, as Loki appeared to have little energy left, instead dragging himself along the floor, Lacey seemed to visibly wilt – the leaf on her head had begun to do so – and Erra seemed unable to beat her wings together.

"This is just _torture!_" I groaned from my place on the floor. I was eagle-spread underneath a tree, my head buried half into a leafy bush, finding the slightest bit of relative cold in the burning hot area. "It's _unreal!"_

It also seemed I wasn't the only one that thought so. I'd bumped into a few trainers on the road, who like me, were suffering under the heat. Apparently Lavaridge was due to get even hotter when the summer hit in just over a month's time, and I couldn't help but want to get away as soon as I could.

My leg jerked as feather-light insect steps pressed against it, and only when I saw that it was Erra creeping did I relax. I reached up and wiped my soaked brow, only for it to become slick with sweat mere moments later. It was just too hot!

It also made me feel sorry for Lacey and Erra, having to go into the tunnels nearby.

We'd travelled far enough so that the cave network was only an hour's walk away. Lacey still seemed fine with the idea, if not slightly eager to be out of my way, and my command for some time.

Erra meanwhile was oblivious to it all. I'd put off telling her, if only because I knew she'd probably worry and give herself a heart attack by fretting about being left alone with Lacey for a while. I couldn't exactly shout at the creature for being so nervous, but I couldn't wait around for her to overcome it by some sheer miracle alone.

"Come 'ere," I grunted at her, holding my arm out for her to crawl onto. I felt the weight of her body and her spindly legs brush against my arm before I lifted it back up to myself, holding it and by extension, Erra, above my face."I've got a special mission for you."

Something like panic and surprise lit up in her eye. She buzzed once, loudly, and I gathered that she wasn't too happy about the idea.

"I need you on this," I told her, hoping she could understand enough. "There's a few things that Lacey's decided she needs from inside the caves, and she needs someone to help her get them. The only thing is, they're slightly magnetic, so you're the only one that can help her in any way."

It was quite amazing really, how lies could flow so easily off my tongue and make stories. If nothing else, it was a skill.

Erra buzzed again, her legs doing a strange dance over my hand. Little twinges of electricity shot down my arm, making it jerk, which in turn made her spark again. It was a vicious cycle, and one I could only break by petting the creature with my other hand, trying to calm her down as best I could.

"I'm letting you go with Lacey because I trust her. I know that you must, on some level, or you wouldn't cling to her like you do. She's promised me that there won't be a repeat of last time; she won't be brutalising you at all, as I've made it clear what will happen to her if she doesn't do her best to protect you."

Lies. Lies. And yet more lies. They were dangerous things; one became two. Two could become four and so on. It was quite something to realise how many of them I told on a daily basis, and how little truth I used when I was talking to someone.

I told myself it was what I needed to do to survive – to protect the world.

Erra seemed to calm down at my words, at least. She still twitched slightly, though I saw that most of the panic was gone from her stance. Instead she did look a little guarded, and the slightest bit apprehensive, but I couldn't blame her.

It was just a good thing she couldn't read minds. No doubt she would well and truly freak if I knew the trust I was telling her that I had in Lacey, was in fact, the trust that she would put Erra out of her misery if the magnemite's fears became too much for her to function.

"So can you do this for me?" I asked the electrical insect. "Can I put my trust into you for this?"

I watched her antennae flick back and forth a moment as her eye narrowed and dilated over and over. Finally she clicked once, buzzed and flew out of the bushes, hovering over me as she looked over toward Lacey.

I gathered that it must have been some sort of positive answer. It made the decision for me that I really needed to figure out a way to get Erra to convey yes and no answers. Lacey understood being able to make visual gestures, Loki would get excited or placated, while Xander would either croak at me, or just settle a creepy lotad-glare upon the back of my head.

Though soon enough it would be a creepy-lombre stare instead.

There was nothing left to do on our little break, so I called for my pokémon to stop whatever they were doing, and that we were heading on. Lacey nodded silently and walked into line next to me, while Erra stopped hovering long enough to drop down and skulk along my shoulders. Loki instead, took a while, and we only knew he was coming by the sounds of his demonic chatter in the undergrowth. Finally he emerged, little bits of fur and flesh caught between his teeth, and a brown and cream tail clutched in one of his hands.

Blood covered the bottom of it, and I recognised the pattern immediately. "I didn't realise there were zigzagoon around here."

Loki reared his head back with a gurgle of a growl, then cackled gleefully as he petted the dead furry tail. He reminded me of a bad movie villain more and more, and he now had the little furry thing to sit and pet as he gave an ill-timed monologue. Though at least he would have some extra credit as a villain, seeing as he was stroking a dismembered tail.

"Guess there's not any around now then," I grunted as Loki cheerfully played with the dead tail, occasionally whipping it against Lacey like a wet tail.

I gave it two minutes before she would destroy the tail before his eyes.

It took one.

"Come on Loki," I sighed as we continued to walk, even as the sableye knelt within the tattered, chunky remains of his new toy. I shot a look at Lacey and rolled my eyes at the smug look she held. "Did you really have to rip the damn thing up? Couldn't you have thrown it off into the distance or something? We could have got a laugh out of it if he started playing fetch with it."

I got another bored look, followed by one of confusion. Obviously she didn't know what fetch was, which was of no surprise to me. Though when she tried to press me for an explanation, I quickly dismissed it as a human thing. I got the feeling that if I did explain to her what it was, she'd go around throwing my stuff off into the distance, hoping I would play fetch with it.

More than likely I'd just kick her up the backside and make her get it. Provided of course, I could be bothered to check my food and drink for little poisons for some time.

Along the way I made little notes to myself about how everyone was doing in their training, and how it could be improved. I'd seen that Lacey was incredibly successful now with her poisoning, and she could quite easily pump toxins through her leaves whenever she inflicted wounds. Possibly the only way to better that would be if I could get her to spread it simply by touch, though I realised this was _Lacey_ I was thinking about. If I taught her how to poison things by touch alone, nothing and no one would be safe.

Loki was getting better with his shadow-based moves, and I could see that he was turning intangible whenever something frightened him, or whenever there was a particularly loud sound. I'd also seen him watching the machop native to the area, and trying to copy the fighting styles they used. If he'd learnt something, I knew I needed to get him to keep training on it.

Meanwhile Erra was getting some improvement. Not only could I get her to shock things on command, but I could also get her to make that horrible screeching sound again. It made for good tactics; she could stun her opponents, and then shock them when they weren't expecting it. The only problem was that the noise she produced still made my ears ring for a good hour afterwards. Supposedly she could learn how to make light bend in enough ways to reflect certain attacks, or even to make her body hard as steel. I figured either one would be good for her – the more techniques she could use to defend herself, the more confidence she might have in regards to battle, or even daily.

Another thing to learn, it seemed.

Before I knew it we were staring up at the side of the volcano. I could see various little cracks along its surface, as well as what was obviously long-dried magma. It was a feat to see, and even from the ground itself the sounds of pokémon living on and in the volcano could be heard.

At the side of the volcano was a large brick building, with a long system of cables along its roof, stretching all the way up the side of volcano. A strange metallic sort of cart was already halfway up the cables, and I could see it bounce slightly every time it went through the system of pulleys.

_That_ was reassuring.

In the base of the volcano itself was a large cavern hole of sorts, held up by a number of metallic and wooden planks. A crude sign had been erected next to it, labelling it as 'Fiery Path'.

I stared at it a moment, then looked toward Lacey. "This is where we part ways for a bit then," I said, and went to place a hand on her shoulder. At her sharp look, I quickly thought better of it, and instead just dropped the limb by my side. "Well, you know... take care and that. I'm trusting you on this, you know that, right?"

She hissed something and rolled her eyes at me. She took a soft look at the cave entrance, rolled her eyes back to me, then looked up at Erra before she nodded. She grunted something which caused Erra to click in reply, and then started to hover above my head.

"I can trust you to help her on this, right?" I asked the magnemite. "She'll keep you safe in there, but you need to trust in her. And when you come back, I'll start helping you to learn ways to make shields so that attacks and other pokémon won't be able to hit you, alright?"

She clicked happily in reply to that. No doubt that would be the inspiration to keep her going; suffer a few days with Lacey, learn to trust her, and then come back and learn how to keep attacks from hitting you.

Provided she managed to come back at all.

I waved them off. "Come back safe you two."

Lacey hissed something at me as she went to leave. If she were human, I had no doubt she would have flipped me off as she walked. Erra on the other hand, decided to hover around for one last moment, clicked something and then flew after Lacey, attaching herself to the nuzleaf quickly afterwards.

It was a strange thing to watch my pokémon go off on their own. Yet I knew that there may come a time where I needed them to scout out somewhere far away from me, or even to ensure safety up ahead or behind. As soon as they disappeared into the caves, I half expected to hear Erra shriek in pain as Lacey murdered her, and then never see the nuzleaf again.

Instead there continued to be silence. I wasn't sure what was more unnerving.

Loki continued chattering by my leg, letting me know something that I couldn't understand. His ease with the situation let me know at least, that nothing had gone wrong, and that no one had been killed.

"So it's just you and me for a little bit then," I said as I bent down level with him. "It's going to be about two days until they return, and I'm still not sure when Xander will be done evolving. So it's up to us two to keep each other safe. At least Lacey won't be around to rip up any of your new toys, eh?"

He made a small noise at that, and then sent a forlorn glance all the way back to where his zigzagoon tail was left.

I smiled at him and rubbed his head. "So try not to annoy anything, eh?"

Of course, I did forget I was speaking to _Loki._

* * *

I thought I would be able to cope with the thought of my pokémon off in the wilds on their own.

It turned out I was wrong in that regard.

Every spare moment I had, I spent wondering about them both. What were they doing in the caves now? Had they managed to get far in? Had they managed to survive well in the caves? Was Lacey protecting Erra, or just leaving her to rot?

I began to think that maybe I shouldn't have let them out alone. It was too risky, and I was left only with Loki for company.

But I knew it was too late for regrets. What had happened, happened. If they came back, or if they didn't, I would take it and use it for the best.

I heard Loki scampering around in the undergrowth again, and left him to torment whatever creature he was. He'd yet to find a replacement for his pilfered tail, though had gleefully attacked quite a few pokémon. I'd also bumped into the odd trainer, who seemed confused as to why I was walking around with four poké balls, yet only one pokémon. After explaining to them what was going on, most seemed perplexed, others seemed dumbfounded. They couldn't seem to understand why I would let any of my pokémon out on their own, without my eye to watch over them.

The fact was, they couldn't be captured again. Added to that, they'd managed to live without me around before, I was pretty damn certain they could again.

Though of course, the other trainers didn't seem to see things my way. Then again, I didn't really care what they thought, and more often than not, if they annoyed me, I would just wait until they left, and then have Loki steal from them.

He got some fun getting to steal from people, and I got a little extra cash. Win-win situation.

Well, except for the people I was stealing from. But to be honest, I didn't really care about them.

Instead I busied myself on trying to find out where Loki was. I could hear him scampering about, and could smell something burning around us. No doubt he was pissing off some sort of fire pokémon.

Instinctively I clutched at Xander's poké ball. I hissed at my stupidity and watched as Loki leapt out of the bushes, wailing as loud as he could.

I leapt backwards and aimed Xander's ball without thinking yet again, instead dropping my hand and reaching down for my gun with my free hand as the creature that chased Loki made itself known.

Out of the grass burst a small, two foot tall camel. It was a light orange colour, with soft green fur covering its hump, and two deep set, almost dopey eyes that stared out from underneath beige eyelids.

I backed up another step and looked back to Loki. "You haven't pissed off this as well have you?" I asked. He grunted, and I felt my heart rate spike a little. "It didn't... it didn't happen to have a mother nearby it, did it?"

The numel snorted, enough of an answer for me. I felt my heart freeze over yet again, and considered running for it then and there. Camerupt were fierce creatures when angered, and could be some of the most maternal pokémon there were. There were some, like raticate, that would leave their young as soon as they were old enough to stop breastfeeding, and others, like elekid and smoochum that would need their parents around for large amounts of time. Numel fell in the middle, though it meant their parents would still be fiercely protective of their young, just not to the extent of a jynx or electabuzz.

As if to answer my fears, there was a loud screaming shout, of sorts, in the distance. The numel cawed and preened at the sound, and both myself and Loki backpedalled a few places.

I spared a glance down at the sableye. "You just had to ignore my advice, didn't you?"

He grunted something, holding one finger to his mouth in feigned innocence. I rolled my eyes at him and continued to back away slowly from the numel, knowing that if I ran, it would cause the camerupt to chase after us.

When the creature spotted us though, I started to think that maybe I should have ran. It stood taller than me, and had a shaggy dark orange fur coat. Both humps on its back were patterned to look open, and thick red sweat poured out of them, giving the illusion that the creature was spouting magma.

Its long neck twisted around, searching for its young. The adult camel held the same almost-dopey expression, though I could see its ears flickering in agitation towards me. The numel said something to it in their tongue, and I found myself entering a staring contest with a fire-breathing camel.

"Don't. Make. Any. Sudden. Moves," I hissed at Loki.

He rasped something small, and even that made the camerupt snort angrily.

"We just need to outstare it..." I whispered. I knew that if we managed to show the creature we weren't a threat for long enough, we'd be able to escape the camerupt from trying to burn us to a crisp.

Of course, Xander would have to display his perfect timing.

His ball started wobbling, and I could feel it vibrating more and more in my hand. I bit my lip as the camerupt snorted fiercely, and placed my over hand over the ball, praying in vain that I could keep the creature in.

Of course, my luck said that wouldn't happen.

In a burst of light Xander appeared in his newly evolved form. Gone were the six short stubby legs, and instead there were four; two hind legs that were loaded with muscles, and two longer forelegs, able to stretch from his shoulders down to the floor. Two large eyes rotated on either side of his head, and his throat would inflate and deflate with every small breath. His skin was a strange blue-green, and running down his back, from his head to his tail was a long dark green leaf.

He was a frog. A frog with a leaf on his back.

It took everything in me not to burst out laughing then and there.

He croaked.

The camerupt snorted flames.

"Oh shit," I hissed, hating the cosmos, karma, God or whatever the fuck decided to taunt me so. "We need to distract it!"

Loki grunted something, and his eyes lit up with that strange eerie light he used to confuse people. My heart lit up, thinking he would be able to distract the camerupt... except the light hit the numel instead.

It grunted something small, wobbling on its little feet. It looked up to its mother, eyes swirling, and made one long, pitiful moaning sound that seemed only to agitate the camerupt more.

More flames burst out of the camerupt's nose, and it reared back with a mighty roar.

"Xander!" I yelped instinctively, calling the lombre to action. He croaked once and blasted the camerupt with a jet of water.

Scowling, the pokémon hissed as water steamed off of its fur.

"Lose it!" I hissed before it could charge.

Xander croaked once more, this time as he used his long legs to bounce over a small jet of flames. He landed in front of me and Loki both, and breathed out a long stream of fog. It touched the air around us and brought a sudden chill, enough to bring goosebumps onto my skin. I heard the camerupt roar from behind the veil of the mist, unable to see us in the slightest.

I smiled. I could still see it perfectly, even with the mist swirling around us. "Good boy!" I praised the pokémon, though made no mistake in quickly calling them both back and running for it in the other direction.

Try as I might, I couldn't convince myself that capturing either of those two pokémon would be a good idea. Either way I'd end up with a camerupt trying to kill me, which wasn't exactly something I could hope for.

Breathless, panting and sweating profusely, I finally collapsed after a good ten minutes of running. I leant against a nearby tree, hunched over and looked back in paranoia. Thankfully, instead of an angry camperupt, I found nothing but empty forests and a few taillow fluttering around in the trees.

I laughed at the narrow escape to myself, and collapsed fully against the tree, still breathing hard. My hands found Xander's poké ball again, and with a flash of light I released him into the woods before me.

He croaked, neck inflating to stupid proportions, and I burst out laughing.

"S-sorry," I breathed, waving a hand in front of my face. "It's just strange to see you like this. I mean, you had the legs before, and you've still got the small bill over your mouth, but not this inflating throat."

He croaked once more, and I had to stop myself from laughing again. "So you've completely learnt to produce that mist then? Lacey managed to tell me something about how you'd learn something new when you managed to evolve. So did you manage to get anything out of it?"

He looked up at me, blinked and tried to focus on something. He breathed into the air once more, though this time I couldn't see any sort of mist or fog. Instead it seemed to hover above him a moment, and turned darker and darker until it was an obvious dark grey colour. Then suddenly, it began to _rain_ from the small cloud, soaking the happy croaking lombre completely.

"You... you can create _rainclouds?"_ I breathed, stunned. I knew the benefits that rain brought for Xander's species, and instantly my face lit up in a smile.

Xander croaked something at me, and I stared at him, confused. He repeated it twice more, and when I still had no reaction, his tongue suddenly leapt out of his mouth, punching straight into Lacey's poké ball and knocking the barely-caught breath out of me.

Needless to say, I was a little shocked.

"You never had a tongue like that before!" I near-enough shouted, amazed. "Where the hell did that manage to come from? Surely it didn't appear overnight?" I smiled at the small grunt Xander made, and thumbed Lacey's poké ball, understanding he was wondering where she was.

I explained to him what had happened, as well as what I'd learnt about Erra. The whole time he sat there, silent, his throat continually swelling and expanding. It was amazing that I actually managed to keep a straight face long enough to tell him that Lacey had taken Erra on a little training tour.

Amazingly though, I found that he seemed to agree with the idea. I didn't catch anywhere near the full extent of what he had to say to me, though after much time and effort I managed to gather the basics; pokémon could often learn well off other pokémon. It apparently was better for me to let Lacey try and train Erra, as supposedly that would get more results than just me doing it.

I couldn't help but smile at the thought of getting to plan out more things to do with my pokémon's training. I didn't know why, but after having joined the new world, I was starting to develop a habit for trying to plan everything out in advance – sorting out what techniques my pokémon would learn, when they would start learning them, even down to how long they would train for each day.

It was probably part of my army training, buried within me, making me plan for every possible occasion and event. Yet it didn't make me remember home, but it still brought me a strange sense of confidence and happiness.

Perhaps I was just becoming weird. Perhaps I had always been weird, and never been able to show it.

Or perhaps I began thinking too much on the little things, when the big things became too much to handle.

"You know," I said as I slipped down into sitting on the floor. "I've missed having you around," I confessed to the pokémon. "I mean, Lacey can be brilliant to talk to, but she's just so... I dunno. It's like she's still begrudging me for capturing her, so her opinions seem to be biased on letting me fail so that she can escape. Loki's just insane, and is likely to eat anything I try to give him to help him understand. And then we've got Erra, who seems to find everything terrifying in a world that's normally frightening.

"Basically, you're pretty much the only tie to sanity I have," I confessed with a sad smile.

Xander preened at the comment. His whole body seemed to rise, and I saw what looked like a smile spread over his face.

"Though it's still strange to see you as a lombre," I laughed, deflating him a bit. "Not only the whole inflating throat thing, but you're a four foot tall frog. Are all pokémon generally so freakishly large?"

His tongue smacked me on the cheek as answer. I yelped and fell sideways with the blow, taken by surprise. Xander rumbled a deep laugh at my expense, and I couldn't find it within myself to be angry at him. Maybe I did need hitting to bring back to sanity once in a while, though I didn't think my observational humour was so bad that I needed attacking for it.

"Careful," I warned him, nonetheless. "Carry that up, and I'll get Erra to zap your tongue the next time you try that. She's a lot faster than you. If not, I'll just drag you along by it. Or tie it in a knot."

He didn't seem impressed by that. Nor, did he seem to believe it.

I couldn't blame him. He seemed to understand that he was probably my one pokémon who I wasn't likely to attack or harm at any time. It may have been that I started off with him, that he was my voice of reason, or even that I looked upon him as family. I knew that through all my threats towards him, I could only manage to ever harm him in a playful way.

I knew it, and so did he.

It made me realise that there was a high chance that pokémon were a lot smarter than they let on, and that we thought. Maybe in another time, it could have been studied, maybe even by me myself.

But some things just weren't meant to be.

* * *

I remember waiting outside that entrance to Fiery Path with my stomach continually doing a little dance with butterflies and ice. It was like I was waiting for a date to show up, or something equally as silly. Yet this scared me more than any of those ever could; it was the fear alone that Lacey may have killed Erra and they weren't coming back.

It seemed like it only just managed to hit me then and there.

Lacey could have killed Erra... they could have both got horribly lost within the caverns... they could have been killed in there by an angry weezing... _anything_ could have happened to them in there!

And ultimately, it would be my fault for letting them go in there.

By my hip, Xander made a low warbling sound that snapped me from my fears.

"I know I shouldn't be worrying," I muttered as I crouched low next to him. "But seriously, what _was_ I thinking? I mean, this is Lacey! _Lacey!_ We both know what she was like when we found her, why did I ever think I could trust her?"

He warbled again, his eyes flickering around in their sockets.

"I know she's not trying to kill us now," I continued, regardless of whatever my pokémon managed to tell me. "But why did I think she wouldn't try to escape? I mean, sure, if this works, it'll be brilliant, if only because it's a quick way of getting Erra to become more confident. Hell, maybe even Lacey could manage to teach her a few tricks. But _seriously?_ How likely is it that they'll return? Lacey's constantly trying to escape what she thinks is nothing more than servitude, and I've pretty much given her an escape free of charge. I've possibly lost two pokémon through my idiocy."

I groaned and buried my face in the back of his slimy, scaly head. "Am I the biggest idiot or what?"

I felt his body vibrate with his answer more than I heard it. I ended up laughing at the feeling of it and pulled myself away, patting his head without thinking about it. "You know, I think we should find away to teach you how to hypnotise things. How awesome would it be if you became Xander the hypnotoad?

His tongue slapped me on the shoulder for that.

"Ow!" I yelped, leaping back and pressing a hand to my shoulder. "Okay, so you're not going to become some strange creature." I laughed once more and shook my head. "Thanks," I whispered, offering the pokémon a smile. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to distract me. It might not be working perfectly because I know what you're doing, but thanks nonetheless."

He croaked a long, low sound in reply. I smiled aimlessly, thinking it no more than him accepting the thanks, until he croaked again, this time with a tinge of excitement.

When buzzing filled the air, my heart leapt in my chest.

"Erra?" I breathed, moments before the insect landed on my shoulder, clicking happily as she scuttled over my body. "You're back!" I cried joyously, laughing insanely as she clicked a happy tune. Dimly I noticed no shocks coursing through my body, and turned my head to look at the creature. "What's happened? No shock treatment?"

By my side I heard the familiar sinister hisses of Lacey. I spun to face her with a wide grin, and caught myself before I hugged her. Instead I offered her a small nod with a beaming smile on my face.

"Hey," I whispered uselessly, raising my hand up in a small wave. "Nice to see you're back. Unscathed too." I smirked knowingly. "So how low is the population in there now?"

She smirked and gave me a small shrug. Her attention was drawn to the magnemite on my shoulder rapidly, and her smirk quickly became smug as she folded her arms at the creature.

On my shoulder, Erra clicked again and scuttled over my head, seemingly holding a conversation with the nuzleaf.

"Well, this is weird," I decided. "What did you do to her? She's not all twitchy anymore."

Lacey looked at me and rolled her eyes, no doubt sensing another five minute parade show coming up. After a small amount of time – with some help from Xander too – I managed to gather the gist of what she'd done.

Supposedly she'd talked to Erra for the better part of a day, coaching her in battle, and offering small pointers here and there. After that, she waited until the creature went to sleep, and snuck away to provoke another pokémon. When Erra awoke, she was alone, and Lacey had managed to goad a young slugma into attacking her. Although Erra panicked, apparently she managed to hold her ground, though when the slugma's pack – was it even called that? – came along, Lacey jumped in and ripped them to pieces.

She ditched Erra, made her realise she could fight on her own, then let her know that if she needed it, there was always help available for her.

It was scary that what Lacey did was exactly the plan I had in mind.

It made me feel better that it seemed to have worked – to a degree. Erra seemed to understand now that she could trust us, and that we weren't about to inflict another harsh beating on her again. She understood that she could defend herself if need be, and in so, seemed to have some confidence back.

Deep down, I knew it wasn't likely that she could jump into a fight and become a fierce warrior. But with what I was presented, I hoped for nothing more, and tried to convince myself that she would be able to fight any battle.

I laughed in simple happiness and petted the magnemite on my shoulder. "So what do you say we start you on some new drills, hm? I've read around enough and can help you learn how to make your body as strong as steel, and also a technique that can let you take a hit without getting hurt. What do you say to that?"

She buzzed happily in my ear, taking flight and flitting around Xander. He croaked at her, and for a moment I had an image of his tongue lashing out and snaring the insect in its grip. Thankfully it was nothing more than my imagination, and he seemed to start sharing a conversation with her.

With them distracted, I turned back round to Lacey. "So how did it _really_ go in there?"

She shrugged and waved her hand a tiny fraction in the air. So what she said wasn't the complete truth then. No doubt it wasn't as simple as she said – though to be fair, I never once did believe that she'd managed to convince Erra completely by the use of only words and scare tactics alone.

I knew Lacey had a vast knowledge of poisons; I wouldn't have put it past her to have slipped Erra a strange sort of a drug that would have made her more complacent or something similar.

In fact, it was almost completely expected from her.

What I wasn't expecting, however, was for her to grunt at me and give me a small explanation. Or more so, a reason not to give an explanation.

She made a series of gestures, and her meaning was clear; _I trust you enough to come back and serve you, trust me enough to not ask what happened._

I stared at her for a long moment afterwards, trying to interpret her words and the meaning behind them. Finally I managed to whisper, "You don't serve me."

She lifted an eyebrow and gestured towards the poké balls on my person.

"They're... a safeguard," I snapped, floundering for words. "You're _not_ a slave Lacey. You know this as well as I do. If you were, you'd rarely get fed, I wouldn't look out for you like I do, and I wouldn't be helping you get stronger. Instead I'd just be pointing at pokémon or any random things and telling you to kill them. I've had this conversation with you before; you're not a slave, I just happen to need your help. Besides, I've seen the way you've looked at me when you think I'm not paying attention – you _want _to help me. Something in you wants to help me see this whole goal of stopping my future from coming to pass."

She folded her arms once more and snorted.

I smiled at her displays of rebellion. "It's nice to have you back," I told her, and gently patted her on the head.

She hissed once more and batted my hand away. I grinned at her dark look and left her to reacquaint herself with my other pokémon as I led them to the cable cart systems.

Amazingly enough I managed to get on the next cart going up the volcano-side, and had the cart to myself and my pokémon. The journey itself, however, was not so amazing.

Sure, the sights of the volcano and the lands around in the distance were breathtaking, but no one ever mentioned anything about the _heat_!

The cart _did_ have air conditioning in there, and my pokémon didn't seem to mind too much, but I was positively soaked with it all. I stood underneath the cool mechanical breeze for most of the journey, and even still my back, face and neck were pumping out sweat like there was no tomorrow.

Heat was a horrible thing, I decided.

Once we were at the top of the volcano, it was a brilliant sight that struck us. I could see far off into the distance; past the green lands of the forests and the metallic structures of the towns. Far off to the east I could see the swirling sands of the desert, and even a few pokémon soaring high up in the skies.

After a few moments of watching the scenery I took the pathway along the volcano towards the town. The top of Lavaridge was on the same level as the volcano itself, and the town was built down towards the ground, complete with its own farmlands in and around the forests and fields beneath the main town. The buildings were all old and natural; stone and wood with thatched roofs. It was like something from an old painting, and the whole town smelt of charcoal and sulphur.

I was amazed that such an old, cultured town could exist in the middle of an industrially-advanced country. It was almost as if by being separated by forests and a volcano, the town had yet to indulge in the industrial hype the rest of the world had.

A bit of me wondered just how the town could ever have stayed so rustic and prospered.

Yet no part of me would ever have expected it to become the epicentre of so much in my life, and almost literally the last hope for life for so many.


	29. Force of Fire

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Force of Fire

* * *

**

_The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done _~ George Carlin

**-O-O-O-**

"_We have found out a number of things in our research to poké balls and the states of creatures within. Our experiments first started with how much damage a poké ball could take before it broke [see page 12], after which we moved on to establish what happened to a pokémon when the ball containing it broke._

_Our finds were conclusive, and in 100% of cases, the pokémon inside died._

_The various degrees of damage affected the state of the pokémon within, though all were fatal. In the cases of cremation, the pokémon inside was found to have died through extensive burn injuries._

_Crushing the poké ball results in the pokémon inside also being crushed. Pokémon with strong enough jaws – such as aggron or salamence – can even consume the poké ball. While pokémon will consume others for energy, it has been found that a pokémon still gains energy from consumption of a poké ball, though at a substantially reduced level. In desperate times, if a pokémon is hungry enough, it will consume a poké ball in the vain hope that it will achieve nourishment._

_Though there are also limits a poké ball can endure without ever affecting the pokémon contained within."_

- Excerpt 2/3 from '_The Limits of Poké Ball_ _Technology_' by Dr. R.E. Fuji and Dr. P.H. Blaine. _(February 1__st__, 3004)_

**-O-O-O- **

I decided quite quickly that despite the heat that the town made me suffer, I actually liked Lavaridge.

Unlike other places like I'd been to – namely Slateport and Rustboro – where the people were so busy with their daily lives that they would push past you and ignore you completely, everyone in Lavaridge was pleasant, and almost everyone there would happily stop and talk to you about mundane things. It seemed as if, unlike the big cities, they weren't afraid of strangers, nor were they afraid of pokémon. In fact, I could often see pokémon happily living within the town's limits, from little zigzagoon or rattata scurrying around, to zubat perched underneath wooden beams on houses, and even a nest of pidgey quite happily living atop the pokémon centre.

The town itself was nice, and almost everything was built into and around the mountain side, meaning there was a lot of climbing up and down stairs. It was no wonder why the people living there seemed in shape. The gym was on the lowest level – on the ground itself – and I'd managed to book myself a gym battle in there rather quickly. I had a whole two days to prepare from arriving in the town to my battle. The receptionist had told me it was because people would often leave travelling to Lavaridge until last – apparently most couldn't be bothered to trek to a town and then double-back afterwards.

Their relative laziness helped me though, so I couldn't complain.

It also meant that I'd be able to meet up with Ayd on time in Sandstream. He wasn't really saying much by text anymore, and I was lucky if I could get him to answer a question within a few hours. Meanwhile, it seemed that Mia was as insane as ever – I got a text from her saying about how she'd caught something called a whismur near Verdanturf, which had promptly managed to scream and burst someone's eardrums.

I found out by a little research that the creatures were actually deaf, as a result of their own high-pitched voices. When I'd pointed this out to her, she'd sent me back a picture in reply; a little drawing of me being stamped on by her stantler, and 'you suck!' written across the top in big, bright red letters.

From there I'd sent her a picture of Xander, calling her a toad, and our picture-insults had somehow turned into us both sending pictures of something random to each other, with an equally random caption. It was like people watching in two places at once, with added insanity.

Of course, it meant leaving my pokémon on their own for a few moments at a time. I'd tried getting Xander to summon bigger rain clouds, but to no avail. Apparently only pokémon with natural affinities for the weather, like dragonair and tyranitar could manage to turn the whole sky into a large rainstorm, intense sunlight or summon hailstorms. The best any other normal pokémon could manage was a small localised area of rain or sun, which meant I had to try and get Xander to try and produce rainclouds in specific areas, rather than try and make him produce large clouds.

Though trying to get him to summon them anywhere Loki was a bad idea. The sableye had a habit of deciding the localised rain was the most awesome thing ever, and would often end up doing a little dance underneath the rainclouds. It could only be described as cute until he decided to start throwing mud everywhere, which ended up with a frightened Erra shooting electricity everywhere, Lacey trying to strangle the sableye for getting mud stuck in her hair, and Xander trying to play referee between them all.

Well, at least they caused chaos as a team, if nothing else.

I made the effort not to groan as I tried to separate them all. I just hoped that their continued trying to murder each other would be helpful in the gym battle. After all, it had been a long time since we'd fought in one, and that had ended in complete defeat.

Though with only a recently-evolved Xander actually being of any use in the gym, I knew I wasn't going to have an easy run of it.

* * *

The two days I had to train for the gym seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. It felt like no time had passed until I found myself at the gym once more, this time with my stomach tense with nervous energy for the battle.

My battle was first thing in the morning, and inwardly I hoped that the early hour would give my team an advantage, somehow. After all, I did tend to wake them up before dawn on a daily basis and run them through drills or travel all day. Though somehow I doubted that the gym leader would slack off every day and be unprepared for an early morning battle.

I couldn't help but be paranoid about the battle, knowing I was going in with such a disadvantage. Two of my pokémon were seriously weak against fire, and I myself couldn't stand any form of heat. It was safe to get in and out of the gym as quickly as I could.

Though when I saw who I was to be battling against, I decided that in fact, I didn't want to leave.

She was tall – roughly my height – and her hair was an unnaturally loud shade of red. It was pulled back behind her head, though a fringe graced her face, falling slightly above her left eye. She wore cropped blue jeans and small blue pumps, while her top was black and cropped short enough to expose her stomach. I caught sight that she had a gleaming silver belly bar, and the faintest hint that she had a tattoo hidden on the small of her back.

Honestly, I had to keep myself from drooling like a lecher at her. Her assistant was telling me something about the battle layout of the gym, or something to do with the exits. It all went in one ear and out of the other. Finally I heard him grunt something out of annoyance before he near enough frogmarched me to the battlefield, and I found myself standing just as stupidly before the woman.

We were stood along a long corridor overlooking the battlefield itself, clear Perspex windows separating us from the outside. I spared a glance towards the battlefield to see two large metallic boxes, each with wide windows and obvious air vents on either side of the battlefield, attached to the corridor itself, which branched off from where I stood into two different directions, leading towards each strange box.

Below I could see the battlefield itself, and was amazed to see the steam rising off the floor. There were a few small holes on the sides that I recognised to be geysers, a small bubbling river of magma trickling down the close side of the battlefield, and a stream of clear water flowing down the other.

The gym leader turned away from a set of controls and smiled at me. "Hey," she said as she placed a small bracelet around a wrist. "Name's Flannery," she greeted.

I managed to get my senses together in time for me to introduce myself to her. She smiled and nodded, then gestured to the windows behind her.

"As you can see, we battle a bit differently here in Lavaridge. Pokémon can battle in much harsher environments than us; we're here to test your resolve as trainers, and just how well your pokémon can battle in such conditions." She folded her arms and gestured to the boxes on either side of the battlefield. "We can't make the trainers fight in the heat, because of health and safety and yadda, yadda, yadda, trainers can't all stand hot temperatures, more bureaucratic bull." Her hands opened and shut in pantomime, and she snorted softly as I chuckled at her attitude towards it all.

"Anyway," she said, clearing her throat. "That just means that you're also tested on being able to give your pokémon orders without you being in the immediate vicinity. You could find yourself trapped down a ravine, in a tree, or even on the third floor of a house with your pokémon only within hearing distance. You're still going to have to order them around, if you can. It in effect, tests your pokémons' loyalty to you; will they still obey you if they know you're not within immediate reach?"

I gulped at that. Xander, Loki and possibly even Erra would be perfectly fine. Lacey on the other hand... she'd already killed one gym leader's pokémon – I wouldn't have put it past her to kill another just as quickly, or as easily.

"So still up for the test?" Flannery asked me.

I nodded. "You bet," I told her, hoping I wasn't letting my doubts show through.

She grinned. "Good. Charlie will show you to your trainer's box. After that, take a few moments to get accustomed to it, and I'll guide you through the technicalities and regulations of the battle."

I nodded once more and turned around to face the gym assistant that had been there all the while. I vaguely remembered him giving me his name earlier, and tried to make it look like I'd never once forgotten he was even there. The problem was though, that he dressed according to the latest fashion of the time for most teenage men, and so he wasn't exactly memorable. I was pretty certain I could find one person in every ten in the city who looked similar or dressed exactly like him – sans the shirt marking him as a Lavaridge gym trainer.

He rolled his eyes at me, and I knew at once that it was obvious I'd forgotten who he was. As he led me to the trainer's box in awkward, near annoyed silence, I debated over whether or not it would have been a common occurrence. After all, I doubted there were many hot-blooded males who would be able to keep their focus on him after seeing Flannery. By his annoyance I gathered that either it was a common place thing, or he was still getting used to it happening.

He showed me into the trainer's box and slammed the door shut behind me. I snorted at his actions as I tried to familiarise myself with the box, and figured out one key problem instantly; there was no way I could get my pokémon out of there and onto the battlefield.

"Comfortable?" Flannery's voice suddenly said from above, scaring me enough to make me jump and yelp at once. I felt my face flush and hoped that she didn't notice that when I heard her laugh through the intercom.

I groaned. Obviously she _did_ notice it.

"Sorry," she said, her voice coming through clearly. "It happens all the time, but there doesn't seem to be a way I can slowly let people know about the intercom systems. On the bright side, it never gets old!"

I rolled my eyes and grumbled under my breath. She was certainly sadistic.

"Okay, so you should be able to see a control panel in front of you," she said, directing my attention from a distance. There was, as she said, a large metallic control panel right in front of my eyes. It reached up to my waist and had a number of buttons and knobs over it, a large screen covering the middle and what seemed to be a large circular hole, probably just big enough to fit a poké ball inside.

"As you might have figured out, there's no direct way to get your pokémon out of the booth. That's where this system comes in handy. All you need to do is load your poké ball into the machine, and then you can use the screen before you to command the machine to release or return your pokémon," she explained to me with practiced ease.

I stared at the console a moment and thought about it logically. Obviously whatever pokémon I placed in there would have to battle first. That probably meant that if I wanted to recall one, I'd have to wait for it to give me the poké ball back first. There was also the problem about how quickly it could manage to recall a pokémon – I didn't want to be stood there hammering a return button, only for the machine to react about ten seconds later.

I weighed up my options and dropped Xander's poké ball in first. The machine beeped once and a display came up on the screen, confirming the pokémon's species, age and health condition.

I whistled. It was an advanced piece of machinery, I had to admit.

"Alright then," Flannery's voice came through again. "Press the release button when you want to send it out, and after that, the recall button when you want to bring the pokémon back. Recalling the pokémon will also eject the poké ball, and the machine will eject the poké ball automatically when the pokémon faints, dies, if your opponent is out of pokémon, or if the machine crashes or runs out of power."

I nodded and then looked around myself for some sort of microphone. "Does that happen often?" I asked the box, and hopefully Flannery too.

"About once every few months," she said, and I could hear the shrug in her voice. "Anyway, I'm going to load my pokémon now, and watch the screen change to confirm it."

I nodded superfluously and stared at the screen until it changed. The details about Xander became listed all on the left side of the screen, and on the right hand side of the split was another screen, simply saying 'registered pokémon', and then completely blank afterwards.

"Those details will fill in when I let my pokémon out, but all you'll get is details of my pokémon's species, as well as its age. Health conditions only show up on the battler's respective box," she explained.

"Anyway-" she cleared her throat and adopted a more serious tone. "You're challenging me today for Lavaridge Town's Heat Badge! I shall use four pokémon, and you're allowed to use all pokémon on your person. League battle rules apply, as well as the addition that attacking the opponent's trainer box is strictly prohibited and will result in forfeiting both the match and your trainer's licence. Good luck, and may the best trainer win!"

The computer before me beeped as white light filled the arena far below me. It spilled forth and formed the familiar shape of a snorting camerupt, though it did look like much less of a threat from a higher distance. At least we already had experience dealing with such creatures – even if it was mainly just distracting and fleeing from it.

And Xander also had an incredible advantage against it, which made me breathe a little easier. I pressed the button on the console in front of me to release him, and watched as white light poured out from underneath my box, forming the shape of my loyal lombre a good ten feet below me.

I heard him croak and realised that there had to be sensors or speakers that made me able to hear what was going on in the battlefield underneath. I reassured him as best I could, and tried to explain to him what was happening. I heard him croak once more, and he seemed completely lax to the fact that there was such a sudden change in everything.

That was typical of him though. Forever unbothered by everything, unless it happened to conflict with his morals.

"Alright Xander, you know what to do," I said, feeling remarkably stupid and like I was talking to myself. "Blast it!"

Flannery's response was instantaneous. "Cause an earthquake!"

I heard Xander croak just as the camerupt reared back onto its hind legs with a fearsome puff of air. Water gushed out of Xander's mouth and the camperupt slammed down hard on the ground, creating tremors enough for even me to feel in my box above the ground. Xander managed to trip over his own feet and his blast of water ended up sailing wide before hitting the very ground beneath him and knocking him over in the opposite direction.

The camerupt snorted with an agitated flick of its ear. It spat a small globule of flame towards Xander, which the lombre easily hopped over, regaining his footing easily on the shaken ground. The camerupt reared back again and Xander jumped instantly, seeing his mistake only seconds too late. Unable to move freely in the air, the camerupt caught him with an intense blast of flames that made him shriek loud enough for me to hear even at such a distance.

"Xander!" I screeched at him, pressing myself against the windows. I saw him there on the ground, struggling back to his feet, yellow blisters covering his body. "Try to heal yourself!" I barked. My eyes shot up to the roof, and seeing no sunlight, I cursed. "Make a raincloud above yourself!"

The camerupt was having none of it though. It reared back again and caused another earthquake, knocking Xander's feet from under him again. Xander hissed at the creature and blasted it with a jet of water, but it only seemed to annoy the creature.

Water dripped from the camerupt's face, evaporating off before it could hit the floor, and I was hit by a strange sense of déjà vu.

The fiery beast bleated a roar and charged Xander with speed something of its size shouldn't have possessed. It raced in head first and ploughed into Xander with unyielding force, and I felt myself wince at the sound of the impact.

I pressed my nose further against the glass, trying to see the state of my pokémon. Only then did I realise the monitor could show me his health condition, and with a quick glance at that I decided to recall him. He wouldn't be battling anymore today, and it would have been useless keeping him in any longer.

His poké ball popped out of the machine with a metallic clunk, making me think quickly about who to use next. Lacey was the strongest, but also the weakest here, and I doubted Loki could take down a fully grown camerupt. Erra would most likely freak out, which left me with a choice of three handicapped pokémon.

The machine beeped at me to hurry up my decision. I scowled at it and nearly threw Lacey's ball into the machine as some method of hurting it. It beeped another tone as it accepted her ball, and the button to release her started flashing.

I pulled a face of it and tried to think as quickly as I could. I needed some sort of decent strategy against the creature, rather than my usual beat it-until-it-can't-get-up approach. My finger hesitated above the button for a second until I had a small plan in mind, and I pressed the flashing annoyance, hoping Lacey would be fine with me at such a distance.

I should have realised that maybe she would be okay, as I did manage to leave her in the Fiery Path completely unsupervised. But after all, I didn't know what happened in there, nor would I for quite some time.

Once released she looked around herself a moment and visibly wilted under the heat. Though seconds later she pulled herself up again, and I assumed it had to be something to do with having been in the no doubt equally hot volcano.

Quick as I could, I explained what was happening to her. To my immense relief she simply nodded and simply focused her gaze completely on the camerupt.

Flannery's actions were instantaneous after that. "Burn it!"

"Dodge it!" I cried out.

I heard Lacey grunt as the camerupt reared back once more. She stood still and held her ground right until the camperupt breathed flames at her, at which point she rolled to the side and glanced at the passing flames with a smirk. The camel's ears flicked in annoyance and it breathed more flames at her, though this time she simply faded from view.

The camerupt roared in confusion, snorting flames as it looked around the field. Suddenly it cried out and fell to its knees as Lacey jumped away from the creature, her leaves coated in fresh blood and the backs of the pokémon's knees sporting large cuts.

I thought better about scolding her for that – getting her to attack its weak points would have been my next command for her, after all.

The camerupt snorted again and breathed heavy fire onto its wounds, cauterising them on the spot. Steam began to rise off the creature itself as fire licked the corners of its mouth, and the windows of my own box began to steam up slightly.

Below I could see Lacey struggling to keep standing, the leaf on her head wilted and sweat glistening across her skin. I hissed and realised that she wouldn't be able to stay around much longer if the camerupt continued to make the battlefield so hot.

"You know what to do," I said, trying to see as much as I could through the steam. "Poison it!"

I saw her nod and a flash of malicious glee appeared in her eyes. The leaves covering her wrists flicked out and began to secrete a strange liquid as she leapt at the camerupt, slashing as wildly as she could.

The camel roared and bucked at her, smashing her chest with two powerful hoofs. The nuzleaf fell back but pulled herself to her feet as quickly as she could, noticeably winded but attacking nonetheless. She slashed across the camel's flank, opening up another wound. I shouted for her to get away as more flames licked the camerupt's mouth, and she only just managed to roll backwards in time.

She pulled herself to her feet, panting though excitement and her joy were palpable on her face. The camerupt whined in front of her, bucking every so often and trying to cauterise to wound once more, though it did nothing for the poison seeping through its system.

It wasn't enough to kill it, though it was more than enough to slow it down. I saw that it was still standing, yet when Xander had been poisoned, he was struggling to stand and throwing up at the same time. It had to be because he was weak to poison, whereas camerupt had a natural resistance to it.

Though resistance or no, it would still wear the creature down.

I told Lacey to sneak attack once more, and she faded from view yet again. The camerupt fretted at the disappearance of its opponent, though a sharp command for it to focus from Flannery made it calm instantly. Its ears flicked in either direction as it breathed slowly, and just as I saw Lacey start to appear, the creature spun its head round and breathed white-hot flames across the nuzleaf's body.

She shrieked in pain at the fiery assault, and instantly I hit the button to recall her. I knew she wouldn't be able to fight after receiving such an attack full-force, and didn't want to expose her to more than was necessary.

As the machine popped out her poké ball, I punched an open palm. Two pokémon down, and I'd only managed to poison one of hers. It meant that I still had three more to go, with only two of my own left.

I decided that if miracles did exist, it was definitely time for one. I snatched Lacey's ball back from the machine and loaded Loki's as quickly as I could afterwards. Once he appeared on the battlefield, I heard him chitter at the change, then catch sight of the camerupt and let out a gleeful cackle.

Obviously he remembered his last encounter with one, and no doubt he wanted to get payback on its species.

Well, I could help him with that.

"Confuse it!" I barked. Below the sableye cackled his little demonic laugh and advanced on the pokémon, his eyes gleaming with sinister, eerie light. The camerupt bleated at him and spat fire in his direction, only for him to nimbly jump out of the way.

He laughed once more and latched onto the creature, eerie light pouring from his eyes and reflecting in the camel's own. It roared once more and bucked Loki off, spitting flames in every direction as the sableye placed his hands over his head and ran for cover, shrieking all the while.

Around me I heard Flannery's uncertain voice. "You do realise confusion is one of the least reliable strategies, don't you?"

I coughed and shook my head. "Uh, no. Why?"

I heard her sigh instantly. "Confusion doesn't make the pokémon harm itself all the time. Instead it's like a weird acid trip for them; they see everything and anything as a threat, and can harm themselves, or deal unchecked damage against anything in their way."

"Oh." I winced. Smart move soldier. You managed to rely on a strategy that could have backfired more times than you've escaped death. "Alright then, slash at its legs!"

Loki spared a glance at my box as if to check my sanity. Then with a feral growl he leapt at the camerupt, hissing as his teeth and claws raked across the camel's legs. It roared at the pain, kicking wildly as Loki hung on by his teeth and managed to open up yet more wounds. The fiery pokémon roared again and spat hot flames over its legs, and by proxy, Loki too.

The sableye shrieked as he leapt away, arms and chest aflame. I finally managed to get him to drop and roll, and as the creature pulled himself to his feet, I noticed that his claws were still partially aflame, though the pokémon didn't seem to notice it much.

When he did, instead of reacting pained, he simply seemed intrigued.

I pressed my nose to the glass of my box once more, wondering just what the hell was managing to happen. There was no way he should have been able to create and control fire that had just been _breathed_ on him!

Unless...

The pieces slowly began to click in my mind. The trainer in the Mauville gym had told me that if a pokémon consumed elemental stones, it could use those elements to attack easier. Granted he had said that it would require specialist training to get Loki to be able to use the fire when he wanted, but I reckoned that being bathed in flames probably acted slightly like a catalyst.

Though using fire attacks on a fire pokémon wasn't exactly the best plan, I realised.

I told Loki to forget about the fire and attack the creature once more. He looked almost sad when he clenched his fists and the fire went out, though his sadness fuelled his attacks as he slashed at the beast once more, using his claws to climb atop the creature and begin punching and kicking at the large humps on its back.

The camerupt whined and dropped to its knees, shuddering in pain at the poison coursing through it and bleating at the sableye's assault. Finally it vanished in a beam of white light from the battlefield, and Loki shrieked as his platform vanished and he fell to the floor gracelessly.

Almost instantly the missing camerupt was replaced by another pokémon. It was a dark brown monkey about a foot taller than Loki, with a shaggy white banded marking around its neck, and a beige stomach, face, hands and feet. It had blue markings above its eyes and the tip of its tail was aflame, casting shadows in every direction as the creature bounced around on the spot.

It took me a bit to figure out just what it was; a monferno, a pokémon native to rainforests. I knew it was rare enough to find in Hoenn, as it was often preyed upon by sceptile, though it could flourish quite well in Sinnoh, and had done for some time.

The monferno hooted and leapt at Loki, its fists aflame. Loki shrieked and ducked under the initial punch, raking his claws across the monkey's chest. It became a shrieking contest quickly, with punches, kicks and claws attacking each other with brutal intensity. Large gashes appeared across both of them, though Loki began to cackle malevolently as he started to let the monferno's punches simply phase through him.

The monkey screeched in indignation and tried to set the sableye aflame. Loki stuck his claws in the creature's nose and yanked it down to his height before he kicked it hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of it and knocking it to the floor.

Seeing his opponent crumpled on the floor, Loki jumped on top of it and began to do a little dance with his hands waving in the air.

Beneath him the monferno hooted and fire burst out all around it, making Loki cry out in pain as he fell from the creature, feet charred and smoking. The monferno shrieked and grabbed the falling sableye by his foot, spun him and threw him clean across the field, letting him fall with a mighty splash in the small river.

Steam rose off from the water around him, and I heard Loki gurgle slightly, attempting to lift himself back to dry land feebly. I sighed and pressed the button to recall him, understanding he was spent

The monkey hooted once more and bounced around gleefully. I glared at it from my box as I took back Loki's poké ball and stared at Erra's.

I took a breath and placed it into the machine, hoping she'd be able to cope. Lacey hadn't truly explained what had happened when she left the magnemite all alone, though I reckoned she'd probably freaked out for quite a while and attached herself to Lacey as soon as she'd seen her.

Inwardly, I already knew what was coming when I released her.

She started buzzing, the heat around her making it difficult for her wings to keep buzzing. As soon as I tried to speak to her, the buzzing increased tenfold and she latched herself to the windows of my box, crawling over the Perspex and trying to find a way in.

"_Erra_," I said through gritted teeth, trying to remain as calm as I could. "You need to battle. I can't be with you all the time, can I? Lacey said you managed to battle that slugma on your own, this is just like that again. Except I'm here, and the moment you're in trouble, I can call you back into the safety of your ball."

She clicked at me and I heard Flannery sigh from her box. My ears burnt as I tried to reach out to my pokémon again. "Come on Erra," I pleaded. "I know you're afraid of battling on your own, but you'll never be able to get stronger if you don't face these battles. Yes you might lose some, but it'll all make you stronger in the end. And then, you won't have anything to fear when you're strong enough to knock everything out with a beat of your wings."

She seemed to relax at that, and her wings beat a bit more excitedly. I nodded at her through the glass, once, slowly, and she clicked her reply to me. Slowly and uncertainly she pried herself from the glass, flitting down to the battlefield and hovering uncertainly before her foe.

I saw the way the monferno looked at her and winced. I knew it was unlikely she'd manage to win, and considered pulling out then and there, if only to stop her getting harmed and becoming more afraid. But I knew that if I did, she wouldn't learn, and if she didn't learn, she'd never get stronger.

Plus, I did try to kid myself a little, that there was still a slim chance of me actually managing to win.

Of course, that died instantly when the monferno bathed Erra in fire. She buzzed and shrieked at once, then collapsed on the floor, both clicking and buzzing weakly. I was reminded of the time when I'd caught her, with bloody goo leaking from her mouth, utterly demolished by Lacey.

This was near enough close to that time, and I knew it would be cruel to make her battle anymore. I hung my head and recalled her instantly, taking her ball from the machine and holding it in my hand.

I needed her to be strong. She needed herself to be strong. Yet I knew I couldn't just abandon her to get stronger on her own. I knew she had to suffer losses to become stronger in the long run.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel bad for her, and bad that I'd put her in such a situation.

The screen before me was flashing as it always had when I needed to change pokémon. I hit the button saying that I was out of useable pokémon, and it beeped once in reply.

Flannery's monferno was recalled in an instant, and the console beeped once more before the door to my box slid open, and I found the gym assistant stood there again.

I stared at him a moment, wondering just whether or not he'd been stood there all along. I went to ask him as such, though my words caught in my throat as I realised I'd forgot his name so soon after being told it.

Instead I just offered a small grunt and a nod, deciding that I'd play along with the usual act of defeated trainers not wanting to say much.

He led me back along the corridors, and I found that Flannery was waiting where I'd first met her.

"Good match," she said as she shook my hand. "It's a shame about your magnemite – I think her fear probably overloaded her and made her stop being able to do anything."

"Probably," I grunted. It was annoying in a way that I'd ended up with a pokémon that was afraid to battle. I needed something that could battle well, and battle whenever I needed it to. Instead I found myself with Erra, a pokémon with a reluctance to battle, all because she associated it all with the beating Lacey had given her when we first met.

_You reap what you sew._ And of course, I'd ended up with the justified results. I knew that when I caught anymore pokémon, I needed to make sure I didn't have any of my pokémon give them such a harsh beat down.

"Try getting your magnemite to battle weaker pokémon," Flannery advised me. "While she might not learn or grow much from those battles, it should make her more confident if she keeps beating pokémon. Though don't go after hatchlings, that's just overkill. And you'll probably get angry mothers after you."

I couldn't help but think back to Loki and the numel. I'd been there once before, and really didn't want to experience it again.

"I'll make sure I do that," I promised her. "And I'll probably stay clear of fiery pokémon for a while."

Judging by the way we were pretty much demolished, I doubted any of my pokémon would want to go near one either.

Flannery smirked at that, crossed her hands and drummed her fingers against her arm. I saw her nod for her assistant to leave just before she asked me, "So what's your opinion on icy pokémon?"

I blinked, wondering just what was up with the random question. I first thought of making some bad pun about how I thought they were cool, but quickly decided against it. Instead I thought about the question; what did I _really_ think about them? Whenever I was around them, I felt calm... like I was at home, or the closest I could be. Come to think of it, I also felt the same sort of serene calm whenever I was around darker pokémon like Lacey and Loki, and even with the weavile that Chris owned.

I shrugged. "They're calming," I answered her, honestly. "Whenever I'm around them, I just feel happier and more relaxed, like... like-"

"Like they're an extension of your family?" Flannery answered for me.

I nodded, bewildered. That was pretty much it; I always felt calmer around them, like I'd known them forever, like a close relative or friend.

The gym leader grunted an amused sound as she nodded. "I thought as much," she said. "Attuned to ice?"

I blinked once more and nodded. "Yeah. How did you-"

"That's how I feel around fiery pokémon," she explained for me. "It's how everyone feels around their attuned natured pokémon. The Elites feel it to a greater extent, but they won't explain how. Anyway," she said with a shrug and leant against the windows behind her. "It explains a lot about that battle. Tell me, did your parents ever explain anything about your attuning to you?"

I shook my head. "They died when I was little. I only actually found out about it a few months ago; when I started this journey."

She sighed and shook her head. "Not the first time I've heard that, and it won't be the last. How much do you actually know about it then?"

I shrugged again. "Not much," I admitted. "I'm going around bugging the gym leaders for information about their own attuning, and from that I'm starting to build a bigger picture, but no one's come right out and explained everything to me."

She smiled. "Then I'm not going to either." She laughed as my jaw dropped and shook her head. "I started out as the gym leader here only a few years ago. When I started, I knew next to nothing about it, and didn't even know how to approach trainers before or after the battle. I've learnt everything myself, and that's the best way to do it. You get a scrap given to you here and there by someone else, but it's you that glues them all together for the bigger picture."

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. "Figure it out for yourself and you'll learn it, rather than be taught it and learn nothing?"

She barked a laugh. "Yup. Exactly that. That's how my grandpa used to say it too, with those exact words. I don't suppose you ever heard him giving a lecture or a conference?"

I shook my head. "No. Why?"

It was her turn to look stunned and just blink. "You're kidding... right? Almost everyone that comes here from Hoenn knows about my grandpa – he used to be one of Hoenn's Elite, until he retired and Sidney took over." She shook her head and smirked as I was about to speak. "And don't try to deny that you're from Hoenn; you've got the accent, even if it is extremely weak."

Well that could be from coming from sixty-three years in the future.

"Are you from around here then?" she pressed.

"Kismet Plains," I answered. It was roughly true, and Ayd _had_ more or less confirmed that it did exist in this time.

She snorted. "Then I'm surprised you know much about pokémon at all. The mayor there still trying to reject everything pokémon and insist we prosper only from human effort."

"I don't know," I said quickly, and stumbled to think of an excuse. "I, uh, joined the army as quickly as I could to get away. It's not much fun being an orphan there. I haven't been back in a long time."

Not total lies at least. Just bending the truth.

She shrugged. "Fair enough. Anyway, what I'll tell you then is something quite obvious when you think about it, yet it plays heavily on a lot of things. You're aware that there are strengths and weaknesses to every form of adaptation, right?" She waited for me to nod before she continued. "Well, it just so happens it's not limited to the person. Pokémon bond with humans too, and while we can adapt from them, they can adapt from us. Our influence can make them smarter, stronger or whatever. It's why trainer pokémon are always so much stronger than the feral ones.

"With an adapted trainer though, the pokémon picks up some of their pros and cons," she explained. "You're an ice-adaptee. Thus, your pokémon are going to pick up on those trends."

I nodded, gathering where she was going. "More resistant to cold and able to form ice attacks faster?"

She grunted a small sound. "Among other things, yeah. But what people don't tend to say is that for every nature a pokémon has, they also become incredibly weak to their opposing nature."

She laughed at my blank expression before she held her palms out. "Say you're a fire," she said, gesturing her right hand. "Your worst weakness is water. When water comes along-" she smacked her left hand over her right and let it drop to the floor. "It gets rid of you completely. A person with fire adaptation like myself has all their pokémon incredibly weak to water, regardless of how resistant they may usually be. They're also weak to the other natures fire is usually weak to, but to a lesser extent."

I tried to get my head around it. "So ice pokémon take more damage from martial arts, steel and rock attacks, and fire too..."

Well, that left a few more weaknesses in my pokémon I'd never once considered. So not only were they weak to attacks they'd normally be, but my influence was making them worse.

Flannery grinned. "And guess what one of those ice happens to be _incredibly_ weak to."

My mind went blank for a moment. There was a choice of four, and any one of them could be it. Though judging by the smirk on the woman's face and the expectant look in her eyes, I caught on quickly.

"Fire," I whispered, unsure. Her eyes lit up, and I found myself surprised that I'd answered right. "Fire?" I double-checked.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "And that's your lesson for today!" she said with a laugh. "Learn it well buddy; it's going to be something you're going to take with you all the time. I'll let you figure out every other element's by yourself, but don't distract yourself too much from your own problems." She smiled once more and pushed herself off the windows. "So you want to learn about the adaptations of fire too?"

I thought about it a moment. Ayd had explained a few things to me about it, but I reckoned that he didn't know it all. Or if he did, he was keeping things back. No doubt for the same reasons as Flannery, though probably also for the added reason that I'd only really just met him when he explained it to me.

"Go on then," I said. "Though I've already gathered that you don't feel the heat and feel the cold a lot more than normal."

She grinned. "We can also start fires with our eyelashes."

My jaw dropped open and instantly she burst out laughing. "Your face!" she exclaimed, falling back against the window and clutching her stomach. "Oh, that was such a picture!" she said and took a deep breath as she pushed off the window. "Right, so seriously now, at least you know about that part. Other than that, we have a habit for liking oxygen, like a real fire. Unfortunately, for some reason a lot of us tend to get asthma. I think it's something to do with the heat coming in and affecting our lungs in some way, but I don't know," she admitted with a shrug. "I'm not a doctor.

"Aside from that-" she folded her arms and looked like she was trying to think. "We're able to go longer than normal people without water. Because it cools us so much and makes us feel a lot colder, our bodies seem to be able to use what water we do have more than a normal person – just like how fire pokémon don't really drink as much as others. Oh, and we're pretty resistant to things like sunstroke and sunburn, but since we get colder than most people, we're pretty big sufferers of pneumonia. That's about it," she said with a shrug.

I nodded and thanked her. It explained a lot after all – I'd often seen Ayd going a long time without drinking, and even though he was slightly fair skinned, he always seemed to tan instead of burn.

"Don't avoid fire pokémon though," the gym leader told me. "What you should do is go to Mount Chimney and capture one. Capturing and training a pokémon of your opposing nature actually makes you better able to deal with your weaknesses. Trust me, I know-" she winked and laughed as she lead me back towards the main reception. I've trained a few water pokémon – granted ones that can learn fire attacks – but that's helped my pokémon become more resilient to it." She smiled and glanced down at me. "A few years ago, before I started training watery pokémon, your lombre's water attacks would have probably demolished me. And now my pokémon can shrug them off a lot better than they once could. Of course, it helps with camerupt – they're naturally able to endure effective attacks."

I nodded along with what she explained. I knew that Mount Chimney held a fair few pokémon, and was home to most of the fiery pokémon in Hoenn. Of course, with the added knowledge that I was likely to get my team greater hurt because of my own adaptations, I didn't much like the thought of having to be around the more powerful fiery pokémon.

Though the knowledge that I could make my pokémon not so easily defeated by fire was enough to spur me into going up to the mountain. It seemed pretty clear that my options were to go and capture both a fiery pokémon and a psychic. I knew I could have gone and captured more, but I didn't have the time or patience to try and train more than six of the creatures. I had little over half a year left, and didn't want to waste it trying to get a team of ten pokémon to average strength, when I could just have a team of six that could help me in my goal.

"Thanks for telling me all that," I said to Flannery as we arrived in the reception once more. "Though why did you get your assistant to vamoose before you told me that?"

She smiled once more and winked. "Because gym trainers have to go through exams every so often, filled with questions about their adaptation. You needed to know for a little bit of survival and progress. I'm not about to give out the answers for exams questions to people I know are taking said exams."

She looked around the reception and caught sight of a few trainers waiting before she smiled at me once more. "Right, now remember what I told you, alright? Do that, train a while, and then when you feel ready, come back for a rematch, okay?"

I promised her I would as I shook her hand once more and bid her goodbye. Back outside the cooler air hit me, and I rejoiced in it for a little time before heading to the centre and checking my pokémon in. Apparently I'd be without them for most of the day, though supposedly Lacey and Erra would need an overnight stay to ensure they were perfectly healthy.

I agreed to that and booked myself into a room for the night, and with the remains of my money stocked up on a few things for the next day.

* * *

I found myself the next morning up the steepest parts of Mount Chimney, trying to claim against a stupidly steep slope with a clicking Erra on my shoulder and Loki scampering ahead of us both, gleefully leaping up and down on the spot every few feet ahead of us.

It was strange, but Erra didn't seem to be as depressed or as clingy as I thought she'd have been. She was still reluctant to battle, but I was able to get her to fly around and not have to support her all the time. The little electrical shocks still hadn't come back, and I think that even though she still wasn't fully confident in her abilities, the gym battle had made her a little more confident in me.

When we finally reached the top, I got Erra to try and train on the weaker pokémon, as Flannery had suggested. It started off with her refusing to battle, and eventually only shocking things from my shoulder. I made sure to point out to her the weaker pokémon, and she seemed happy enough that she was felling everything before it could come too close to her.

In fact, she even managed to leave my shoulder to start battling, and I didn't have to resort to having her attacked. She began happily buzzing around Loki, the both of them working as a team to fell the wild pokémon that decided to attack us.

I wasn't going to point out to them that they were only training on pokémon far weaker than them as they seemed to be having more than enough fun living in the illusion.

I was also still on the search for a fire pokémon to add to my arsenal. We'd encountered a few numel, a small nest of charmander, a couple of slugma and a torkoal, and even at one point a magmar. I wanted nothing more than to capture the magmar, as it did look pretty strong, though it also had a baby magby with it. I doubted it would like me very much for capturing it and making it leave behind its child, and knew that Xander wouldn't like the idea much either.

The thought of being roasted alive by one pokémon and drowned where I stood by another made me opt to not capture the pokémon.

It was only when I decided to take a small break that a pokémon decided to show itself that I actually wanted to capture. Everything else had seemed too weak or needed to long to train up.

The first thing this creature did was try and roast my face, before I'd even so much as known it was there.

It was only by Loki's quick reactions that I managed to be pulled underneath the flames. They were, however, still hot enough for my face to feel burnt, and I felt sweat gush out from the intense heat they formed around me.

I heard Erra buzzing nearby in fright or anger, and something roaring at her. I sent Loki into help before I pulled myself to my feet and saw exactly what had tried to kill me.

It was a large, red pokémon that stood easily as tall as my shoulders. It was covered in red scales, save for its stomach, which were beige instead. Its arms were thin and sinewy, coupled with a set of three claws at the end of each. It stood on two thick legs which both ended with three webbed claws and another, single claw to the side, almost like a tiny thumb, and a large tail swept out behind the creature, the tip of which was bathed in a burning flame. Its face was almost draconic; it had black eyes buried in the bridge of its snout, and a single horn rose from the top of its head. Its mouth was pulled back into a snarl, exposing the rows of very sharp teeth, each bathed in flame.

My heart nearly stopped in shock. It was a charmeleon! I'd considered the possibility that there were some on the mountain, given we'd found charmander, but never once thought I'd actually managed to find one for myself.

It snarled as Loki ran at it and kicked the sableye without taking its eyes away from Erra. The charmeleon took a breath and let out a fearsome roar that made my own spine chill, and caused Erra to fly away as fast as she could, frightened to the core.

The beast turned on me, eyes narrowed and with flames bursting out of its slit nostrils with every breath. I knew I should have gone for a weapon, but reasoned with myself that it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Instead, quite stupidly, I threw a poké ball at it.

The lizard snarled and batted the ball away in anger, its gaze well and truly focused on me. Flames erupted from its mouth and I only just managed to hit the floor underneath them, cheating death for a second time in quick succession.

I heard Loki growl and looked up in time to see him attacking the beast's legs. The charmeleon stopped attacking me long enough to turn and focus on the sableye, and I caught sight of two marks across its chest; one long, serrated scar, almost as if it were made by a blade, and a small wound near its hip, one I knew instantly was from a bullet.

It was no wonder the beast had tried to attack me then. If humans had done that to it, I couldn't blame it for wanting to get revenge against any other it saw. No doubt pokémon saw humans as all the same; if it weren't for the scars on its chest, I wouldn't have been able to tell the charmeleon apart from any other.

I looked up to Erra and saw her flying around, inching closer towards the fiery beast but then darting back every time it snarled.

"Shock it!" I told her. "Keep your distance and let Loki handle the close range. Just make sure you manage to shock the charmeleon!"

She buzzed once more and I saw electricity pump out of the magnemite and into the charmeleon. Its head snapped round with a snarl, though Loki quickly leapt at the beast's head, grabbing onto its skull with his feet and pulling the creature's eyelids back as far as he could.

The charmeleon screamed in rage and breathed fire at Loki as he scampered away, cackling like an insane lunatic. Erra shocked the creature once more as it turned away and it froze, unsure of who to attack next. It knew it was trapped in a pincer movement, and didn't know what one to go for first.

Then it realised the best option; go for the one calling the shots. The charmeleon raced at me, and I only just had enough time to bring my arm up before its claws sliced through the flesh with ease. I yelped and fell backwards, clutching the wound, silently thankful it was only my arm and not my neck.

I let go of my wound long enough to lob another poké ball at it, and this time it managed to hit the creature in the face and suck it in. The ball wobbled only once before it burst open and shattered, sending small metal fragments flying everywhere.

The charmeleon snarled again, flames now spilling from its mouth and its claws. Loki screeched and leapt upon the beast's head again, punching it in the face and kicking the back of its neck with as much force as he could muster. The pokémon snarled and tried to beat him off, only for Erra to shoot it in the stomach with a blast of electricity. The pokémon practically screamed the heavens down at that, and I saw the electricity all circle around the bullet hole on the creature.

I figured the bullet still had to be in its stomach then. It was the only reason why it would have reacted like that; no doubt it was making it move and causing the beast more pain.

The thought of it made me wince in compassion. I knew how bad bullet wounds hurt, but also knew that at least it wouldn't have to have it removed in the field, if I had anything to do about it. I'd experienced that first hand, and didn't want to go through it again.

Just the thought of it still made me shudder.

I saw rage and determination spark in the creature's eyes and felt myself smile. It was a fighter, a warrior, and I felt a certain kinship with it in that moment. Despite bullets and knives, it would continue fighting if it could.

Which was why I felt disgusted with myself even as my next command left my mouth, "Loki, punch its hips!"

The charmeleon snarled again, and I found myself thankful it didn't understand my command enough. Loki, however, did, and with another cackle he bounced off the lizard. I signalled for Erra to shock it again as he did, and another blast of electricity struck the charmeleon in the temple as Loki scrambled around its feet.

The charmeleon roared again, and this time Loki leapt up and punched it in the hip, straight on the bullet wound.

I had to wince at the scream that came out of the pokémon at that. Even Loki looked shocked, and he stared at his own fists, as if wondering how he caused so much pain.

The lizard crumpled to the floor, holding its hip weakly, and a part of me felt sick with myself for reducing it to such a state. I lobbed a final poké ball at the creature without any enthusiasm and watched as the light greedily snatched up the pokémon.

When it finally stopped rocking and Loki handed me the ball, I stared at it in silence, for the first time ashamed of myself for exploiting a pokémon's weakness. It felt wrong that I'd taken advantage of such an injury – the pokémon was a fighter, and I'd stripped it of any dignity it had.

And possibly increased its hatred towards humans in doing so.

I motioned for my pokémon to follow me as I led them back to Lavaridge, intending to get the creature healed. It just came to show that not every capture came with a feel-good feeling, despite what most trainers thought.


	30. A Tangible Mirage

**Author's Note:** Hello everyone. Just a small note here; I thought you would all like to know that now we're officially at the halfway point of the story (chapterwise). In other news, it's come to my attention that the story has been listed on TV Tropes under the Pokemon Fanfic recommendation page by someone known as Drakenzie. I thank you all for continuing to read this, for deciding it's good enough to recommend on TV Tropes and as such, I dedicate this chapter to Drakenzie, who decided to place it under the recommendations.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**A Tangible Mirage

* * *

**

_Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live _~ Chamfort (French playwrite, 1741-1794)

**-O-O-O-**

"_We have discovered that there are a variety of external factors a poké ball can endure without breaking or causing harm to the creature contained within._

_Most notably; if a poké ball is left within a vacuum, submerged in deep water, or frozen in ice it can remain in perfect condition for an estimated three years. This is because when exposed to harsh external influences, the poké ball places the occupant in a digital form of cryogenic sleep. They do not age, sleep, digest or perform any biological function. They just exist. Therefore it is perfectly possible to recover the pokémon after a period of time and for no damage to have occurred to the creature._

_Lesser actions, such as being caught in fires or high/low temperature conditions leave the pokémon inside unaffected. _

_Though all our research fails to answer one question that has baffled scientists for over a century; how and why were poké balls originally created?"_

- Excerpt 3/3 from '_The Limits of Poké Ball_ _Technology_' by Dr. R.E. Fuji and Dr. P.H. Blaine. _(February 1__st__, 3004)_

**-O-O-O-**_  
_

The pokémon centre staff didn't seem too happy when I returned to Lavaridge with the charmeleon needing to be healed.

In fact, they didn't let me anywhere near his room until they'd made me fill in a load of forms stating just how I'd found the creature, how injured he was before I'd caught him, and whether or not I'd actually been the one to inflict his scars upon him. Even after that, they still had to call in an expert in order to make sure his scars weren't made just before I captured him.

Well, that was stupid, I decided then and there. It was painfully obvious that his scars were old, yet apparently they had to go through all these checks to make sure I wasn't an abusive trainer, and also in order to try and figure out who and what could have inflicted such injuries on it.

Nearly half a day had gone by the time I was allowed to go and see my new pokémon. It had already had its operation, and I had to listen to a nurse explain to me how I would have to clean and replace his dressing, and how often I should let him out, along with how much exercise and strain he should put on it.

It would be a good fortnight before it was able to battle again well, though I knew it would be worth it in the end. Without the bullet in its hip, I didn't have to worry that the creature had an additional weakness, and the pokémon itself would hopefully be a lot calmer around humans.

Though I doubted that when the nurse led me into its room and let me see it strapped to the bed by its arms and legs, his snout muzzled and with an IV drip in his arm.

The nurse explained to me that they had to strap it down to stop it from attacking them, as apparently it had tried often whenever it came around. The muzzle was to supposedly stop it breathing flames on people, and the straps to keep him from slashing everyone.

It wasn't going to develop any love for humans anytime soon that was for sure.

I stared at the creature's unconscious breathing as I pulled up a chair next to it and scanned it with my pokédex. Supposedly it was nearly two and half years old and male, which put it as the second oldest in my party, behind Lacey. It also meant that I would have a fully grown charizard within half a year of capturing it, which I knew wasn't a bad thing at all.

Though that depended on me getting its trust first of all. Probably not the smartest thing ever; to capture a people-hating charmeleon whilst I was still trying to get Erra over her confidence issues.

Though I knew I couldn't pass up the chance with such a creature.

I waited around in his room for a little while and stared at the creature, trying to think of a name for it. The most obvious thing I thought of was to call it Scar, if only for the namesakes across his chest.

Though that was quickly thrown out the window. I wasn't about to give a pokémon a nickname that sounded like it had been thought up an unimaginative nine year old.

My eyes snapped up as the beeping of the machine dropped to a steady beat, and I saw the charmeleon's eyes begin to open.

It hissed something sleepily and its claws flexed, arm muscles straining to break free of its bonds.

"Hey," I whispered to it, placing my hand tentatively on one of its arms. "Don't try and do that; you'll break your bandages and open up your wounds again."

It hissed again at me and flexed its claws once more. His eyes narrowed to pinpricks and I saw him struggle even more, and knew that he had to want to plunge his claws into my throat.

I decided that my safest option was to have a translator try and explain everything to him. I released Lacey in a wider part of the room and saw her glance around before settling her eyes on the lizard, suspicion built into her very demeanour.

"I need you to try and tell him what I'm trying to say," I told her even as I pulled my seat away from the thrashing lizard. "He doesn't like humans much; when I found him he had that massive knife scar you can see, but he also had a bullet wound." Her suspicion turned to intrigue as her head spun round to me, surprise on her face. "Someone had shot him a while ago; the wound had healed, but there was still a bullet there. It's why we're back in Lavaridge; I needed to have the bullet removed from him, it was too big a weakness and risk to his health to have that continually grating against his hip."

She folded her arms and nodded, grunting something once as she looked at the creature. She was no doubt evaluating him; seeing whether or not he was worthy to join our team. She was still the strongest, and knew it, yet I had a feeling the charmeleon's ferocity and fiery abilities would be able to put it on a level par with her.

The nuzleaf grunted again, and this time she accompanied it by pointing at the charmeleon's hip. I stared at her, wide eyed until I managed to understand.

When I did, my first action was to offer her a sheepish grin. She was wondering where her training was; I'd promised to teach her how to use a gun, and had only managed to take her to a shooting range once.

"I've... uh, forgot so far," I admitted to her. She didn't look pleased in the slightest, and I couldn't blame her.

"I _will_ teach you," I promised. "But I'm still trying to think of how you could make your wrists strong enough to handle the recoil. So far I've come up with nothing, and I might end up having to teach you something else instead. It'll still be just as deadly, it just won't be a gun."

She rolled her head, seemingly considering it. Finally she offered a small nod and then held a hand out towards the charmeleon in the bed, who had quieted and was instead watching us both in equal parts distrust and intrigue.

What was I meant to have her say to it? I pulled a face to myself and buried my chin in a hand, thinking about it all.

"Tell him... tell him that the bullet in his hip's been removed," I instructed her. "Let him know that it's not going to be a handicap anymore, and it's going to let him fight better, without a handicap."

She nodded once and began to communicate with the charmeleon in grunts, growls and hisses. I found myself listening in, wondering if I could pick up anything that was being said in the conversation. After all, when listening into foreign languages, you could always pick up the odd word if it was used well enough.

But this was like trying to listen for quiet at a music festival. No matter how much I tried to pick something up, there was just aimless noise getting in the way. I only just managed to notice that Lacey had finished talking to the charmeleon and was instead talking to me when I saw her arms past by my field of vision.

As I was forced to play charades yet again, I decided it was far past time I should capture I psychic. I had been up Mount Chimney a few times, and yet I hadn't encountered a single spoink or grumping that was supposedly native to the area. It was as if something didn't want me to capture one, or they were all hiding away from me.

After much fuss I finally managed to get the charmeleon's question, through Lacey. It wanted to know why I'd help it, and pointed out that I was human scum – Lacey took a great deal of pleasure in telling me that – and that he shouldn't have to be associated with me, along with a number of threats to my physical being if I even thought of attacking it.

I groaned and wondered just how I was meant to explain it to him. "Tell him that I want his help," I told her. It was, after all, exactly what I'd said to Lacey before, and I knew that if the lizard had any sense about him, he would ask her how I'd managed to get her help too. "Say... tell him what it's like being a trainer pokémon... and-" I glanced around ourselves to see if we were being watched or not. "Let him know how much I let you get away with. I'm sure he'd be interested to know I let you keep your _hobbies_."

I watched her explain everything once more, and the charmeleon seemed less aggressive with every small conversation they had. It was obvious he still didn't like the prospects of having any humans around, nor did he seem to favour the idea of working with one, but I think the fact that I had gone through the hassle of having the bullet removed from his hip created a small slither of respect in the creature for me.

Though that was quickly buried under a wall of aggression when he found out that I'd need to change his dressings every so often. Eventually Lacey just gave up trying to reason with the creature and just let me know that I'd need to subdue him every time they needed changing. Which meant that once a week, I'd be having a lot of fun wrestling with an angry, injured charmeleon.

That was something I looked forward to whole-heartedly.

I left the room when the nurse came back in and told me that the charmeleon would be ready enough to leave within an hour, provided I left him in his ball for a day, and then only let him out for brief spurts of exercise the day after.

Judging by the way he growled at that, I knew the first time I had him out again would be eventful.

I went back into town in the brief hour I had, and while I explored I let Erra out of her ball for a little bit. She seemed somewhat skittish about people being around her, though calmed a little when I praised her for her battle against the charmeleon. I told her that we'd be working with him from now on, and reassured her that he wouldn't attack again.

That lie meant that I'd have to keep those two separate for a while.

I ended up recalling her before I went back into the pokémon centre and passed the remaining time watching the television in the waiting room. It was set on the news channel and the remote hidden; no doubt it was for trainers to see what was happening in the rest of Hoenn. Most of it was aimless broadcasts about little events; the Hoenn government had secured funding for the next year's tournament, and already there were rumours about a celebrity guest appearing to open the event.

Other than that there were a few things; apparently the virus that had spread through Petalburg had long since passed, and only a few people were collecting symptoms – though they were in Rustboro and even Dewford. They had some sort of so-called expert on that only said the virus could have been passed through by human contact or through water, or even through the air or by getting into clothes that were shipped to other shops.

In other words, he didn't actually really know what he was talking about.

Then there was something about some sort of science experiment due to take place at the end of the year that I really should have paid attention to and some sort of religious conundrum about Arceus worshippers slandering people who worshipped a human god and vice versa, that people thought would burst into something more. After that there was a little bit about the trade economy between Hoenn and Sinnoh; something about the Hoenn volcano water being bought more and thus the stock prices going up and apparently there was an influx of diurnal pokémon appearing everywhere, due to the near-summer daytimes.

I only realised later that the news was a good way of finding out what was going on in the world. Perhaps if I'd paid more attention, I'd have had a few clues as to what was happening, and wouldn't have been taken by such surprise when everything finally revealed itself.

* * *

The first time I tried to change the charmeleon's dressings wasn't exactly an easy task.

I ended up trying to approach the creature for a good five minutes, each time being nearly assaulted with a big fiery breath. I was thankful that I'd had the foresight to leave Xander and Lacey out with me when I'd let the lizard out of its ball; the first thing it did was try and set me ablaze.

I would have thought that being soaked by a pressurised water blast from Xander would be enough to dissuade it, but if anything, it seemed to make it worse.

I growled to myself, feeling completely useless with bandages and gauze in my hands. Hitting the charmeleon in its weakened hip wouldn't help it gain any trust towards me, and extinguishing its tail-flame was a sure-in to make it hate me, if not make it contract some horrible infectious disease.

I shot a glance at Lacey and mimed my plan of action to her as quickly as I could. The lizard snarled once more, and for a brief second stabbing fear caught me; I convinced myself it had to have understood.

When I gathered my assumption was wrong, I decided that I would start teaching my pokémon a few signals to get points across in code. I pushed that thought aside as I approached the creature again and signalled Xander to be ready as the lizard bared its teeth at me.

Flames burst out of its mouth and I dropped to the floor yet again. I heard a violent hiss above myself as water met fire; turning to steam in the air itself. I lifted my head a fraction to see Lacey swipe the lizard across the back of its neck, deftly catching it and setting it down on the floor with gentle, almost maternal instinct.

"Good job," I panted as I made way towards her. "Keep an eye on him; make sure he stays asleep while I do this. If he wakes up again, smack him on the snout or something," I suggested with a shrug. "Just let me change these as quickly as I can."

I blew hair from my face as I set to work, figuring I had at best a few minutes. I didn't know how hard Lacey hit the creature, but knew that injuries like a blow to the back of the skull would only incapacitate most pokémon for a few minutes, whereas humans and most physically frail pokémon – like psychics – would be out for a good hour.

My hands slipped over each other as I worked against the clock of doom-bearing-angry-charmeleon. Every small noise it made had my heart leaping from my chest and my blood freezing on the spot.

Just once did I press too hard on the surgical scars, and the beast roared in pain, its whole body arching up in violent protest. Lacey, to her credit, reacted instantly, and smacked the creature again on the back of the neck, subduing it yet again.

With a bead of sweat dangling from a bit of hair in my vision, I spared a glance at her. "Why do I get the feeling you enjoy learning these weak points a bit too much?"

She smirked at me, malevolence flashing in those yellow eyes of hers. It made me smirk as I carried on working on the creature, remembering a time when I was like her; so eager to learn to destroy in the best ways.

I think that probably, that always remained.

But at the time I convinced myself I was moving past that – by beginning to care for other creatures and endeavouring to bring good to the world.

Perhaps really, I never did change. But I felt like I had, and that was one of the main things that kept me continuing on my torturous quest.

"Done," I wheezed as I wiped my forehead with an arm. I collapsed backwards and landed heavily on my backside, lazily sweeping all the used bandages away with my feet. I threw a grin at Lacey as I heard her grunt approval, and felt myself laughing at the incredulous look on her face.

"I grew up on and around battlefields," I explained to her, oddly reminiscent. "I've had to do quick patch-up jobs before now. Only problem being that I'm not a medic. I know how to replace bandages and stop most wounds bleeding, even dose people up with drugs and booze to fight pain. Anything worse than that, and I'm afraid I'm as clueless as Xander."

The lombre croaked in offence to that, and I leant backwards on the floor, smiling up at his disapproving frown. "Come on," I protested impishly. "You know it's true. You can heal yourself, but what would you do if I had a punctured lung and a busted spleen? I'm the human, and _I_ don't rightly know how to treat that!"

Though the thought of suffering such injuries brought a contemplative frown to my face, forcing me to sit up and meet Lacey's gaze. "Do pokémon even have spleens?"

Both my pokémon laughed at me for that. The charmeleon stirred and all three of us tensed a moment before I allowed myself to laugh with them.

"Hey, I know about vital organs, and the best ways to kill something. Even ways to identify gender with a number of common pokémon," I defended, smiling softly and oddly; remembering such lessons fondly. "What does a spleen even do anyway?"

The charmeleon groaned again and this time managed to come to once more. I motioned for Lacey not to attack it as it got up slowly, gingerly testing the newly wrapped bandages around its hip.

"Good enough?" I asked it, watching it cautiously. "I'll need to do that again in a week and make sure it's not infected. If you don't attack me next time, I won't have to knock you out again."

It pressed a claw gently to the bandages, lifted its leg experimentally and twisted its body round in a stretch. Deeming it good enough, the creature looked back to me, eyes blazing and teeth spilling fire.

Hastily I recalled it, not wanting to try my luck at any time around then. With the snarling lizard gone, everyone seemed to relax, though Lacey outright snorted at me, obviously _terribly _impressed with how I handled him.

"Don't forget that you hated me as much as he did when we first met too," I reminded her as I collapsed to the floor, elevated heart rate and anxiety catching up with me. "I'll win him round too, don't you doubt that. Granted I don't think it'll be all that easy."

She grunted something that was lost underneath my sigh as I stared at the sky, aimlessly drawing shapes with the clouds. I heard Xander croak something and Lacey hiss a reply, and left them to their conversation as I let my thoughts float away with the clouds.

I began to think about what I could do with the charmeleon in terms of drills. It was blatantly the best course of action to have him train with his claws and his fire. I could probably have him train his fire against Xander's water blasts when I had him controlled enough, and probably Loki to train with him with claws. Or maybe even Lacey with her razor-tipped leaves.

Of course that meant managing to get the creature under control. I doubted threatening it would work like it did with Loki; it seemed to hate humans enough already. No doubt threatening it wouldn't make that any better. I knew tricking it like I did Lacey wouldn't be as likely to work either; the creature was smart, but not educated like she was. Its smarts were more towards survivability, hers were educated towards humans.

I thought that perhaps I could get it under control like Erra; a little bit at a time, coaxing it more and more into learning things, just like I had with Xander too.

Though it didn't seem patient enough for that, nor did I have the patience to train a pokémon around running from intensely fiery blasts.

I groaned as I pushed myself back to a sitting position and dragged my backpack towards myself. After some searching I managed to find the pair of face mask I'd bought in Lavaridge – it looked like a gas mask and staring at it, I was _certain_ we'd used these exact designs in my own time. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if the ones we'd used were remains of a massive production from the present.

I considered putting it on and scaring one of my pokémon, though quickly decided against it. Either pokémon would find it funny if I scared the other, though Lacey was likely to slice me, and Xander to snap my neck with water blasts. Either way, I knew I'd need to introduce Erra to me wearing it at some point; I needed to wear it to get through the sandstorms without getting sand in my eyes, nose or mouth, and she'd undoubtedly freak out if I approached her wearing it.

The mask was slung back into my pack haphazardly as I thought about it all. In sandstorms, only grounded pokémon, or those with skin as tough as rock or steel could manage to see, breathe and move without difficulty. It meant that I'd have to rely on Erra in the sandy regions, which didn't fill me with much confidence at all.

Honestly, I had that little faith in her courage that I would have completely skipped over visiting the desert town, if it weren't for the fact I was meeting Adryan there.

Really, looking at that, it was no wonder why _she_ wasn't the most confident creature around. If I didn't believe in her, what chance did she have in believing in herself?

I shook my head and slung my pack over my shoulders, stopping to pick up the scraps of bandages I'd taken from the charmeleon. Both my pokémon watched me with interest as I flipped out my lighter and set fire to the bandages, my interest completely engrossed on the brilliant flames that devoured the rags even as I dropped them to the floor.

When I finally looked away I caught them both staring at me and gave them a shrug. "I don't want anything smelling his blood. I think only charizard, rhydon, onix and maybe some big-ass altaria are the only things around here that eat charmeleon, but I really don't want to take our chances with them. You guys are strong, sure, but I don't think we're exactly skilled enough to take down wild onix. Those things could _actually_ sneeze and kill us."

I smiled to myself as they both grumbled and walked along behind me, understanding my logic. Though the one thing I failed to share with them was the fact that Kismet Plains was nearby, and people had believed some part of it had been destroyed by wild onix. The fact that people could believe it meant it could be true. If it could be true, then that meant there were likely to be onix slithering around nearby and I _really_ didn't want to encounter any of those.

Or, for that matter, _anything_ that was capable of swallowing me whole.

* * *

Over a week had passed before I found myself anywhere near the desert town of Sandstream. The sandstorms nearby the town were bad, but at least they were regular. Every day, without fail, they would start up about six in the morning, and they would only start to die out at about ten at night.

I figured it had to be something to do with the wild flygon, hippowdon and who knew what else that lived in the desert.

It wasn't as bad as I had first thought, however. My other pokémon could fight just as well in the sandstorms, as long as they kept within a close distance to me, so as to make sure they didn't get lost. However, with Loki being Loki, and Lacey often wandering off to kill things, I did end up having to send Erra to play scout quite often.

What surprised me the most though was the fact that Erra seemed to thrive within the desert conditions. It was almost like she knew that she was the only one accustomed to such climes, and by that, possibly the strongest member of our team in such an environment.

It added further fuel to my belief that her confidence and courage issues were all to do with her just believing herself to be weak. I had to somehow drill it into her that in fact anything capable of electrocuting a person or pokémon to death _wasn't_ weak. Although, it seemed that the praise was only a temporary fix; it would wear off whenever something managed to startle her, which unfortunately, was quite often.

I needed some way of constantly reminding her of her strength.

On top of that problem, I also had the charmeleon. In over a week I had made little or no progress with the creature. The only improvement was that he didn't attack me when I replaced his bandages for a second time – though doing so was difficult in itself. I had to wait until the sandstorms had died down to do so, which meant that it was in the dead of night. I had Xander hold my torch on the lizard's pelvis, which meant I was one guardian down. As an added bonus the charmeleon's tail-flame worked as a useful second torch, and as a beacon warning me of his movements.

But those issues weren't the most problematic to changing the charmeleon's dressings. What was the worst were the freezing conditions of the desert. My fingers were numb with cold as I tried to bandage the pokémon back up. Once or twice I had to try and reheat my hands with its tail-flame – something he wasn't too happy about.

Though when the bandages were replaced, he seemed content enough with them and didn't try to attack me. Instead he skulked off to the side and remained apart from all of us, hissing and growling whenever one of us tried to approach.

I'd made progress in the fact that he wasn't trying to attack me _every_ time he saw me. Instead it was only _most_ of the time. However, trying to get him to listen to commands or even attempt a drill was near impossible, though he _did_ recognise the command to burn something.

That something was usually _me_, however.

I decided to give him a bit of space and tried to be as friendly as I could to the creature. It wasn't having any effect other than a few growls, a few cuts down my arms and first-degree burns along my left thumb, but it _did_ make him understand that I wasn't about to shoot him at the first chance I got.

During the day he also seemed to laugh at my inaptitude for heat. At least I wasn't alone; Lacey had also taken to looking like she was burning to a crisp, and I was fairly certain that the two of us had sunburn.

_Undoubtedly_ certain when on the second day of travelling through the desert, Loki fell from and caught my shoulders with a painful slap. After about five minutes of howling and cursing every name under the sun, I swore that I would never, _ever_ go anywhere without sunscreen again.

Though for all my complaining, the desert was a strangely beautiful place.

There were sand dunes that had to stretch hundreds of feet up from the ground, sometimes even seemingly threatening the very skies themselves with their presence.

I climbed the tallest one I could find one day in the desert and decided to stay there for the day, if only for the amazing views. Everything in the distance was slightly wavy and distorted through the heat coming off everywhere and the background blurred seamlessly from dull yellows to bright blues. Occasionally I'd see wildlife crawling around far below us; pokémon and other animals too; everything ranging from skorupi, trapinch to camerupt, to strange snakes with horns above their eyes and some strange creatures that looked like persian, except with more yellow fur and brown-spot patterns. Only the pokémon would ever come near though – everything else seemed to remain a distance away, or would flee as soon as I got close.

The time alone with Erra also gave me the opportunity to teach her more. I'd managed to get her to constantly produce the horrible screeching sound on command, and I had even managed to teach her to use the sunlight that reflected off her body. It took a bit of coaxing – and a bit of creative genius – but eventually I figured out that if she produced a small electrical charge, she could use it to make herself bounce the sun in a controlled direction. We practiced it a lot and eventually she was able to aim the bright flashes of light at pokémon's eyes and strike them when they were blinded.

On the other hand, my other pokémon weren't progressing as remarkably.

Xander still couldn't make rainclouds that large, and it was still taking him at least an hour to heal completely with sunlight. He could heal over small nicks and cuts in a matter of minutes, though his fatigue would still be present. Lacey still wasn't too brilliant with her golden-light psychic abilities and although I'd tried getting Xander to teach her to heal with sunlight, she seemed more interested in learning the leech seed trick she'd seen sceptiles use before.

I'd pointed out that I had no idea how to teach her how to use it, though she'd countered by showing me a large valley full of cacti.

Or at least, I first thought they were cacti. When we got close enough, the plants _moved_ and I nearly had a heart attack before remembering that cacturne and cacnea were indigenous to the area.

After Lacey had tried to convince some members of the pack, fought against their alpha, lost and subsequently nearly had us eaten by sentient cacti, the charmeleon decided to strut forth and set fire to one of the younger cacturne. After that and some negotiation on its behalf – which I'm fairly certain was just him threatening to burn them all – the alpha cacturne agreed to teach Lacey the basics of the technique, from which she could learn and improve herself.

It was heart warming to see my pokémon helping each other.

Heart warming and frightening.

Though mostly frightening.

Meanwhile Loki seemed just as unable as Lacey to get a grip on any psychic powers. Although he seemed to be learning how to slash things open with his claws while he was hidden in shadows and he even seemed to be able to throw fiery punches without any heat damage to himself.

However, he couldn't actually _produce_ the fire himself, so we'd taken to distracting the charmeleon and then having Loki bathe his hands in the pokémon's flame. As much as the lizard didn't like it, the process worked. The next step was simply having Loki himself produce the flames.

I decided that I would have Adryan try and help me with that. He was, after all, adapted to fire and I reasoned that if anyone I knew could help me with that problem, it was him.

By the time I'd reached the desert town of Sandstream, I'd hit the fortnight deadline for meeting Ayd and then some.

It was hard to believe that over two whole weeks had passed since I'd been in Mauville and got rid of that cursed makuhita ghost. I still hadn't given Adryan an explanation towards it and he did seem somewhat annoyed that I was running late. At first, I got the impression he thought it was just me trying to avoid him, though once I explained to him that I'd been trying to train a charmeleon that hated humans, he seemed to be a bit more understanding to my situation.

Although, running over time wasn't the most of my concerns at the time. With the lack of available water in the surroundings, we'd been left to kill the odd cacturne for the water they retained, as well as relying on Xander's own water production capabilities.

On the one hand, it was still fresh water, no matter how we looked at it.

On the other, we were essentially drinking Xander saliva.

It kept us going towards the remote town and gave me another mental kick in the backside to buy too many provisions, rather than too few. Alongside that, the whole time I'd been making my way to Sandstream I'd wondered just how anyone could build a town in the middle of a desert and not suffer the effects of the sandstorms.

When I got there, however, it seemed as if they didn't feel _any_ of them.

The town was quite simple; cloth tents and stone buildings, with a large well in the middle of the town and a large community of darkly-tanned people dressed in simple cloths wrapped around their heads and long plain robes.

Even the pokémon centre's roof was barely discernable – built of a stone shaded slightly redder than the other buildings around it.

Though what struck me the most was that there wasn't _any_ sand whipping around the air.

I squinted through my mask lenses and thought that it had to be a problem with them. When I asked Erra and she seemed slightly afraid of everything again, I chanced a quick glimpse out of my mask.

I found that the town had a quiet air; the sounds of the sandstorm distant in amidst the calm of the seemingly ancient town.

I stopped by the supplies store first and bought a few supplies I'd ran out of as I asked the worker there just exactly how it worked.

He explained to me that it was some form of technology capable of driving away the sand, yet allowing people and pokémon both to pass through unhindered. When I asked that if they had money for technology like that, why they lived in such rustic conditions, he told me that they were a simple community and that cloth and stone houses were a lot easier to repair and replace than large buildings containing loads of valuable possessions.

In a location where sandstorms were always present, as well as territorial desert pokémon, I couldn't fault their logic.

Afterwards I headed for the pokémon centre and checked in my pokémon with routine ease. I checked with the receptionist whether or not Adryan was checked in and after checking my trainer i.d, she told me that he'd left a message saying we were sharing a room.

I thanked the woman as she handed me the key and quickly left for my room. I had to hand it to Ayd; he really did think ahead. It saved me booking a room for myself and paying full price, with the added bonus of making sure I didn't have to share with a stranger.

On the other hand, it meant I was effectively trapped with him and I would have to explain everything soon enough, no matter what.

The thought made my hands shake as I tried to put the key into the lock.

I knew I wasn't ready for such a conversation.

Hell, I still wasn't even ready for such _thoughts!_

I took a deep breath and decided that if he asked, I would tell him that I'd gone without sleep for too long and needed an hour or two for a nap.

Maybe a shower too.

Or really anything that could delay me telling him.

I forced myself to open the door before I could decide to run away and stepped into the Spartan room.

Instantly I found myself thrashing as a towel wrapped round my face. With a yelp barely concealed as a growl I pulled the offensive white thing away from my face, glaring at the room with a clenched fist.

I found nothing to say Ayd was in there and heard no laughter, which meant he had to be out.

A scowl darkened my face as I slammed the door shut and saw the coat hanger redesigned to hold the offensive laundry item. I glared at it once more and stepped into the room, taking note of the fresh-shower smell. It meant that he had to have left fairly recently, which made me wonder just whether or not he'd used that towel before he'd set it up to attach to my face.

I tried not to think about what he'd dried with it as I chucked my bag on the unmade bed and looked round the room. I laughed to myself; it certainly looked like Ayd had been there for a few days – his stuff was lying everywhere around his bed, with various magazines and notes slung on top of and underneath his clothes.

Yet again I wondered just how he managed to cope as I picked up, folded his clothes and made his bed. I only caught myself afterwards and had to laugh about old habits.

After I'd unpacked most of my clothes and decided what needed washing I caught sight of a note attached to the television.

_If you're reading this note... well that means you finally got here. (C'mon did you really think this was a suicide note?) _

_Anyway, gone into desert to get Irenui back. (Don't ask. Mating season.)_

_Back about midday._

_~The awesome one~  
_

I glanced at the clock in the room and saw that it was only oh-ten hundred hours. I frowned as I scrunched the note in one hand and thought about it. On the one hand, I could wait around for Adryan to come back and no doubt be forced to tell him everything that had happened with me that I _really _didn't want to share. On the other, I could find something to do to delay such an event.

I decided on the latter as I grabbed my dirty crap and took it down to the laundry room. It was almost by coincidence that one of the pamphlets in the room was advertising a place known as Mirage Tower. Apparently it was a strange structure built into the desert itself that appeared and disappeared depending on the weather conditions at the time.

I thought it nothing but a worthless tourist attraction until I saw the large picture advertising the trainer's incentives to go there. Apparently the place was a hotspot for finding fossils of some strange pokémon I'd never heard of, like lileep and aerodactyl. In addition to that, it was apparently an ancient tower built by a nomadic tribe of baltoy and claydol worshippers – supposedly the pokémon would still flock to the tower even then, as it was supposedly a spiritual haven for them, or something.

I stuffed the pamphlet in a pocket without thinking too much on it. If there was a chance for me to capture a psychic there, I knew I had to take it. After all, I'd encountered no wild psychics thus far on my journey and I really didn't want to have to face another demon again. If there was a chance for me to get something like a claydol as my psychic, I knew I had to leap at the opportunity.

As soon as all my washing was done I near enough bolted up the stairs and placed them away. I scrawled a quick _'Gone to Mirage Tower. Back tonight'_ on the backside of the note Ayd had left me and left the room quickly, collecting my pokémon as soon as they were ready.

I glanced at the clock in the waiting room. It was eleven hundred fifteen by the time they were done, leaving me thankful that they'd been more tired that injured. Supposedly the charmeleon was fine – apparently his scars would heal up fully within another fortnight, which would be about a week after I was allowed to let him battle again.

The news made me happy, if only to know that I'd only have to suffer two more anxiety filled dressing changes again.

Although, once he was fully healed it did mean he'd be able to attack me with a lot more ease. Every cloud was meant to have a silver lining, but mine all seemed to be swamped down by grey.

I don't think I was ever meant to be an optimist.

* * *

I found it strange that after only an hour of walking, I was able to find the so called 'mirage' tower.

It was an ancient looking structure; made of old sand-coloured stone with large gaps here and there, exposing the inside to the outside elements. Large windows were present on every level of the tower and there was a large structure atop the tower's roof – it seemed to be an ancient statue, though from such a distance I couldn't make out what it was.

Sand was gradually lapping over the tower's bottom floor, slowly threatening to bury it back underneath a dune. I watched it a moment and saw it rise just over an inch in about five minutes. I figured that meant I probably had about an hour until the door was buried again, though as long as I reached the top I could always just slide out the highest windows and onto the sand dunes outside.

The thought of it made me smile and I decided that would be my plan of action.

Erra clicked frantically from her position on my shoulder, calming only slightly when I pressed a hand gently on her head.

"I'll let the others out when we get in there," I told her. "It might be sand storming in there too, so we're probably going to be relying on you. You're strong enough to get us through, I know it."

She buzzed once as I approached the ancient doorway and spared a quick glance inside. It was dark, dank and filled with dust and sand, making me wonder if anyone had ever actually managed to find their way inside.

After I'd found my torch and switched it on I took a step inwards, wholly unnerved by the deafening quiet that encompassed the ancient structure.

Old statues stood as tall as the rooms themselves; figures of ancient pokémon and creatures I had never seen before in my life. Sand fell gradually from the roof above, making the structure seem completely unsafe and likely to fall at any given moment.

Though since I knew there was a sandstorm going on outside, I doubted that would be the case. The falling sand had to just be the remnants of swirling sand coming in and managing to slip through the cracks. Added to that, the statues seemed perfectly whole and they surrounded the room, acting as impromptu pillars.

I released all my pokémon but the charmeleon and let them look around the ruins with me. I didn't want to risk letting the fiery beast out anywhere that he could separate me easily and decide to take me out without many complications.

"I've never even heard rumours of some of these pokémon," I whispered as I traced a hand along a large stone sculpture, my mouth agape as I stared up at the creature's frightening size. It had two large wings and a jaw set with rows of large, sharp teeth and its face seemed infinitely frightening, even just in stone. I shuddered as I turned away from it and knew that I didn't want to encounter one of those on my own.

"C'mon guys," I said as I purposely left the statue behind me and ascended the ancient stone steps. The floor we came to was yet another large hall, decorated with more stone statues around the borders. It made me wonder just what the whole tower had been used as; it seemed to be one large prayer room on every level.

I checked the floor before I moved and saw a number of cracks and small holes leading down to the room below. Evidentially that was how the sand was managing to pour through.

I stuck my arm out lengthways to halt my pokémon. "Careful guys," I warned them, pointing my torch to the cracks on the floor. "The floor doesn't seem completely stable around here. Tread too hard and we might end up falling down and breaking something."

I heard them all grunt something behind me and saw Lacey and Loki both move off into the darkness with ease. Of course, they could see perfectly well in the dark, so they didn't have to worry about stepping onto broken floor in pitch-black darkness. Erra buzzed and hovered around near us, never going too far away from anyone. Xander however remained by my side constantly, stepping only where I did and crawling gently across the floor.

"Kinda make you wish we could see in the dark too, doesn't it?" I asked him conversationally as I jumped over a large gap on the floor. He hopped over it with considerable ease and looked up at me, offering a small answer.

"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "I suppose it would be easier if we could fly."

He croaked something and I nodded, if only for the semblance of conversation. A large empty space in between the statues caught my attention; large chunks of debris serving as the only remains of the statue.

I stopped before it and looked up, hoping to see something. Instead I found nothing but empty air and wall, though I found a small stone carving beneath where the statue should have been. Most of it had been worn away with time and sand, though what remained was a small inscription written in the unown cipher.

I crouched before it and took some time to try and figure out what it meant.

"_Righters of time, the d.."_

I frowned at it and brushed my fingers against it, hoping for some imprint to be left there. Instead there was nothing but smooth rock, leaving me clueless. I remained there for a few minutes longer, wondering just what it had to mean.

It could have been that it was ancient spelling, 'righters' instead of 'writers'. But was there something that recorded time? I knew of the legends of the Dialga; the pokémon capable of warping time to its will. Then there was the Celebi, who could travel through time, which I knew first-hand.

I gave up thinking about it as I stood up and moved away from the plaque. I knew I wasn't likely to ever be able to figure it out on my own; there were a lot of things that started with the letter 'D'. I was assuming it had to be pokémon, though for all I knew it could have been a tribe or anything.

Instead I distracted myself with a large statue of a claydol. Like all the others it stretched from floor to ceiling, though this one was easily twice as wide as any of the others. The markings on it had been carefully painted on, managing to make the creature look almost real in the dark.

I grunted an amused sound as I leant closer and pressed my hand against it. I wondered just whether or not it was real... if there was even the slightest chance it could come to life.

The statue wobbled.

Lacey hissed.

And I leapt out of my skin.

My torch clattered to the floor noisily as a scream gargled its way out of my throat. I looked back up at the statue in unease, already stepping away when I noticed something blaringly obvious about it...

... it _wasn't_ moving.

I pressed a hand over my heart and started laughing, amazed at my own imagination and stupidity. I crawled towards the light of my torch, listening to the sounds of my pokémon behind me again.

Lacey hissed again.

My torch light went out.

And my stomach dropped in icy fear.

"Alright," I whispered, unsteadily getting to my feet. "This isn't funny," I growled at them. "Turn the torch back o... oh shit."

In the darkness surrounding us were numerous _glowing_ red markings, each no taller than my knee, though each with the same pattern; one single curved line, like a mono-brow, and a circle with lines coming out on the horizontal, about a foot below the mono-brow marking.

Part of me celebrated the fact that we'd managed to find baltoy; my hopes of finding a psychic _finally_ rewarded.

Although the other part of me wanted nothing more than to flee the tower, screaming doom all the while.

"I don't like this," I whispered, my eyes darting between each of the strange glowing marks.

I heard my pokémon reply in the limited darkness and tried in vain to find them. Everything was a strange shade of red and even finding Lacey's luminous yellow eyes proved to be difficult. More and more my pulse was racing and every possible bad thing that could possibly occur began racing through my mind.

Then all of a sudden, all the strange glows disappeared.

The hairs on the back of my neck all stood on end as I was flung into darkness, goose bumps trailing all the way down my back. This was unreal. Baltoy weren't meant to randomly attack, right? They were only meant to feed on things like sandshrew. Not humans!

The paradoxical quiet returned to the tower, my heart rate the loudest thing I could hear in the whole damn place.

I could see Lacey's eyes trained in the distance; the only light source in the whole room.

I couldn't see anything in the darkness. All I could hear was my breathing.

I scrambled on the floor for my torch, breathing heavily all the while. A gust of wind blew behind me and I shrieked, diving to the floor. Behind me I felt something appear and then vanish instantly, leaving behind a sense of discontent and hatred.

I shuddered. It was _horrible._

I placed my hands on the floor, trying in vain to search for my torch. The stone beneath me gave way at different times, halting my progress more and more.

I felt trapped.

Alone.

Isolated, even with my pokémon nearby.

Something slammed into my back and made me drop to the floor, groaning in pain. It felt like I'd been hit with a stone statue. Gingerly I lifted a shaking hand to my back and pressed it, hoping the damage wasn't too bad.

It felt bruised, but not broken. There was chanting in the background, somewhere, almost human in nature. It was like a constant murmuring, the words too low and fast for me to discern.

The chanting spread throughout the place, making it hard for me to hear anything but it. I managed to hear the beating of wings... Loki growling at something... something crying out in pain... and quiet.

I smelt fresh water and knew Xander was around there somewhere. Something slammed into my leg once more and I dropped my face into my fists, refusing to cry out in the dark.

The chanting became louder around us and the red glows appeared again.

This time though, they were from the air above us, circling round, moving in time with each other.

All at once there was a harsh blue glow, almost like eyes lighting up.

Blue and red spun around us, merging into one horrible flash of colour that never remained constant. The chanting grew louder and louder, pounding in my eardrums, making me completely unaware of anything else.

I tried focusing on the spinning lights, but everything became blurry. Slowly they blurred out of view, becoming nothing but one large smear before darkness overtook that.

My eyelids became heavy, my heart rate slow.

Then there was nothing at all.

* * *

I awoke with a gasp sometime later, completely in the dark and with my hip sticking painfully into the stone floor. I pushed myself to a sitting position with a groan and sat there holding my head, trying to make the world stop spinning.

All at once I remembered everything that happened and leapt to my feet, breathless and frantically worried for my pokémon. I called out their names as I stepped over the floor tentatively, but found nothing more than silence greeting me.

I groaned and dropped my head. I didn't understand it! Obviously the baltoy wanted to kill me, but why didn't they?

I dimly remembered the fact that I'd never let out the charmeleon and so wasted no time to bring him into the strange chamber with me. He hissed at me as soon as he saw me and once he noticed we were completely alone, his face curled up into a sneer.

"You know what, I don't have time for your shit right now," I hissed at him, stepping closer towards him. The light blaring off the flame on his tail and those licking his teeth gave me enough to see that we were in some sort of large chamber, much like the ones floors below. The main difference was that ours had no statues in it.

The lizard growled at me once more, making my anger spike again. "I've had it with you, understand that! I'm the one that made sure you got operated on; that bullet's been removed from your hip and you're able to fight a lot better now! I'm the stupid fucker that keeps changing your dressings, trying to make sure that you're healing right! I'm the one feeding you and making sure that you're still alive! And you just stand there growling at me, attempting to kill me at every chance you get!

"Well guess what," I seethed at it, pointing a finger up at his chin. "You're stuck here, just like me. We're trapped in this stupid chamber; everyone else is who knows where in this tower with a host of murderous baltoy out for blood. Now I don't give a shit if you hate humans, you're gonna have to work with me if you want to get out of here!"

Flames spilled out of his teeth, dripping into the empty air between us. I saw his claws move out the corner of my eyes and heard the deep, threatening growl coming forth from his throat.

As soon as I saw him try to attack me, I reacted. I did the first thing that came to mind.

I punched a charmeleon on the snout.

He yelped more from surprise than pain and grabbed his snout with both paws, blood trickling out from beneath. I tried to step closer to him, to apologise, but another growl made me back away. Flames burst out from his mouth and again I dropped to the floor, but this time the charmeleon jerked his knee upwards and caught me straight in the chin.

I fell to the floor, dazed, my eyes rolling around in their sockets. The charmeleon leered over me with fire circling his claws. After a long moment he sneered at me, pointed to the bandages around his hips and then skulked off into the darkness, taking my only light with him.

He decided to let me live because I'd helped him.

It didn't change the fact that he'd just abandoned me in some dank, dark chamber.

"Fine!" I yelled after him, pushing myself to my feet ungracefully. "Walk off on me, you ungrateful _thing!_ I don't know why I bothered helping you anyway! You're nothing but an overgrown _monitor lizard_ anyway!"

My arms dropped to my sides with a hollow breath as he vanished completely into the darkness. The pain of him abandoning me somehow felt so much worse than watching the wurmple or makuhita die – it was almost like he'd chosen death over living with me.

It didn't just sting, it ripped me apart.

I sunk to the floor and leant against a wall, staring out despondently after the creature. I cursed it and myself for a good while before I decided to get back onto my feet and search for my other pokémon.

I took a breath and forced myself to move further into the chamber.

Then something _rumbled_ behind me.

I stopped dead in my tracks as a little whimper escaped my lips. Nervously I turned around; not wanting to see what was waiting for me.

There were eyes.

Six of them.

Floating and glowing bloody red.

I screamed and damn near shit myself as I jumped away from the thing, bloody red glow beginning to surround the entire chamber. It loomed over me and managed to illuminate ancient carvings on the wall.

I glanced at them quickly, only for my heart to sink even lower. The pictures were ancient; little side-on, two dimensional drawings of ancient people and pokémon offering sacrifices to some sort of huge figure wearing a large crown. I saw six eyes on the creature in the painting and felt myself gulp.

At least I knew why the baltoy didn't outright kill me; they were just sacrificing me to some ancient physical god instead!

"Uh... you don't want to eat me," I told the creature, backpedalling as quickly as I could. "Urm, I don't taste nice. I'm too thin and stringy. Like bones. I'm bony! And chewy! And full of complex carbohydrates!"

Who knows why I ever thought that would put it off eating me.

I felt a deep, booming laughter suddenly invade my brain, bringing with it the familiar pain of psychic intrusion.

_[Good,]_ the voice bellowed in my mind, eyes lighting up with every word it spoke. _[We happen to like bones. Nothing as delightful as the satisfying __crunch__ they deliver.]_

I jumped away from it as something large fell over, making a large impact on the ground. In the movement I managed to pull my gun on the thing, hands shaking as I tried to aim it at one of its eyes.

"Don't-" I started to warn it, and then realised; it was trying to _eat me_. I fired off five rounds in quick succession and watched in horror as they all just _bounced_ off the creature's eyes.

I felt the laughter in my skull once more. _[Foolish mortal. Does it believe its puny weapons are capable of delivering onto us harm? It is but the sample course. Its obedient servants will add more nourishment to our meal.]_

Fury burnt through me at the mention of my pokémon. "What have you done with them?" I demanded of the giant, ancient claydol. "Tell me where they are!"

The voice was back again, dropping me to my knees with pain. _[Or what mortal? What will it do to us? Attempt to bore us to death with dreary observations about its pathetic life? No mortal. Its fate is... unerringly tainted with the touch of the righters. It must be destroyed.]_

I dropped my guard for a moment. "Wait, what?" I asked, bewildered. It was to no use as I found myself hurled by invisible energies against a wall, slamming hard against old and new bruises.

I moaned like a beaten animal and crawled to my knees, spitting up blood on the floor. Again I found myself flung into the distance, hitting another stone wall with harsh force. My head banged hard against the surface and the world spun, everything moving in random directions and nothing making sense.

I squinted my eyes as I lifted my head, struggling to see the ancient creature. It loomed over me again and I dropped my head to the floor, sobbed and struggled to keep myself from being sick.

Just as I thought I was done for, I heard a deep, fierce hiss in the distance. There was a loud, almost ancient-sounding noise like a scream, and one of the eyes closed, bathing a part of the room in darkness.

I lifted my head again, forcing myself to focus. I saw... _fire_?

It took a moment for it all to register. Fire meant that something was fighting it. Fire meant that something in the chamber was a fiery pokémon. The growls were familiar...

It meant that the charmeleon had to have come back for me!

The deep booming laugh of the claydol invaded my thoughts again, piercing straight through the blurry haze of my mind. _[Do not be so foolish, mortal. Its pet only returns because they are trapped.]_

I groaned and turned my head to the side, trying to see into the darkness. The claydol's eyes lit up and illuminated the dark corridors, showing me enough to see a stone door in the far distance, covered in scratch and burn marks.

I grunted a small, "Oh," as I dropped my head back to the floor. So the charmeleon only came back because it had no choice. It wasn't loyalty or friendship or anything like that; it just happened to assume beating the claydol would lead to a way out.

I crawled towards the wall and managed to push myself up against it, leaning unsteadily against it. "T-the eyes," I croaked, voice harsh and garbled. "Get... claydol's... eyes."

I stumbled against the wall as something screamed in the distance. There was more screaming, a little more darkness and then something wet landed before me in the darkness with a horrible _splat!_

My knees gave way underneath me as I tried to see what the thing was. Everything was swimming and I was certain I'd pass out soon, but I wanted to know what had landed there.

Finally my hands found it; large, wet and sticky, almost the size of my head. My vision swam as I stared at it, taking long enough to see the dark red colour of it in the darkness and the unseeing black pupil.

I laughed as I dropped the eye on the floor and fell back against the wall. The charmeleon had managed to rip out one of the damn things eyes!

"Good going!" I shouted like a drunk into the darkness. "Take 'em out! Rip out its eyes! Burn everything inside!"

Everything tilted to the side and it took me some time to figure out it was because I'd fallen over. I groaned and pressed myself back up, catching a little bit of the battle in front of me. There was a flash of fire and I hissed, waving my hands in front of my face. "Too much light," I groaned as I leant my head against the wall.

I figured somewhat slowly that I had to have a concussion. Everything seemed to be spinning around me and there was a dull ringing in my ears that didn't seem to stop. I heard myself laughing and tried to keep myself awake, forcing myself to try and concentrate on the sounds of the battle.

There was silence for what I thought was nothing more than a second, but then something was shaking me violently. I swiped at it drunkenly, not trusting myself to be able to move.

Then more pain came as a voice interrupted my thoughts. _[Do not fall asleep!]_

I started violently and backed away, pulling myself free of the grip. The voice sounded like that bastard claydol! It had to have survived! I convinced myself it had killed the charmeleon and it was going to torture me until it killed me.

Though something about the voice seemed softer... calmer... friendlier.

_[Do not fall asleep, mortal,]_ the voice boomed in my head again. I blinked and waved my hands as six bright red lights appeared in my vision again, trying to bat away the bright light and the claydol they belonged to.

_[You have a concussion,]_ it informed me, tone dull. _[Stop moving or we shall be forced to psychically restrain you.]_

Another drunken groan left my throat. "Who... you?"

_[We are known as 'Myos',]_ the voice told me. _[It is the name you may refer to us by.]_

I blinked and caught hold of one bit of information. "'Us'?" I repeated, alarmed. "You're a claydol aren't you? That big fucker had friends, and now the charmeleon's dead and you're here to _eat me!_"

The voice chuckled in my head, soft and amused. _[We are not here to consume you. We are Myos; a claydol. We are not one single entity – every claydol cluster refers to ourselves in plural. Your charmeleon is alive, though unconscious. He ripped open a wound whilst battling Tyraos.]_

I distantly remembered being told not to let the charmeleon battle for a while. I winced at the thought of him opening those wounds up and knew he'd probably have to keep them on for longer.

"My pokémon," I grunted, reaching out at the voice.

_[Your charmeleon is safe,]_ it replied instantly.

"No," I whispered, slapping at the empty air. "My... others. A lombre... sableye, a magnemite and a nuzleaf... that's nearly shiftry."

The light in my face intensified and I hissed, hiding away from it. The voice was back again, bringing yet more pain that managed to anchor me to consciousness. _[They are in the tower, one floor below. We shall teleport them out with you.]_

I tried to protest, but before I knew it everything was taken up by a bright blue light and I passed out once more.


	31. Revelations

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Revelations

* * *

**

_Watch your thoughts, for they become words.  
Watch your words, for they become actions.  
Watch your actions, for they become habits.  
Watch your habits, for they become character.  
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny _~ Anon.

**-O-O-O-**

"_There's only so much anyone can take before they want to curl up and cry. No matter how hard you are, no matter how stoic, there's always something that tramples across your breaking point._

_Who you are is defined by how you deal with that. You either give up and live life wondering what could have been, or you rise to the challenge. No matter what happens, as long as you know you've risen to the challenge, you can take solace in that._

_Insanity awaits those that wonder what could have been, even as they live up to the challenge."_

- Glacia Frost, 47th Hoenn League Champion, Hoenn Elite Four Member 3002-3025. _(November 16__th__, 3002)_

**-O-O-O**

I was aware of three things when I woke up.

The first that was my concussion was no longer present – in fact, it had vanished without a trace. The second was that my mask was no longer covering my face and the third that it was dark. And I was cold.

"And finally, the hero awakes."

I jumped up at the sound of Ayd's voice and squinted in the darkness. I found him sat across the other side of a campfire, coatless and with a small creature rummaging through his backpack. He smiled at me as I managed to lean on an arm groggily and asked me how I was doing.

Before I thought about anything like that I asked him, "Where's my pokémon?"

He waved behind him where I saw my pokémon talking to some of his and some I didn't recognise. Lacey was talking to Irenui, Xander to Leif, Erra was scuttling around a large yellow yeti with black lightning patterns across its fur and the charmeleon was off to the side, huddled away from everyone with a golden furred horse sat near him, its mane the colour of fire and glowing in the dark night light.

"The electabuzz is Claire and the rapidash is Lucy," Ayd explained with another wave of his hand. There was a low, bellow-like sound from somewhere behind me and I jumped even as he said, "And I believe you've met Myos."

I looked at the hovering claydol with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, yeah. Briefly. I think. I don't remember much of it."

Ayd snorted a hollow laugh. "I'm not surprised, given how out of it you were. I had to get Willow to heal you up; you're lucky she can heal injuries, otherwise you'd be in hospital right now."

The mention of a gardevoir put me on red-alert. "Where is she?" I asked, alarmed. "She's not here right now, is she?"

He shrugged. "She's around. So is Ripper. I let them go off and hunt."

I nodded, relieved that I wouldn't have to encounter the demon. "How comes you've got eight pokémon with you then?" I wondered. "I thought people were only allowed to carry around six."

He smirked. "That's what they recommend. When you're experienced enough as a trainer, those recommendations become a lot more lax. I can look after eight pokémon well enough; four of them hunt for their food most of the time and the other four aren't too much of a hassle."

There was a small sound from by his feet; something like a childish burp. He laughed as something pulled its face out of his backpack and I stared in amazement at the creature. It was barely two foot tall, with dark brown scaly skin, though blue scales decorated the entirety of its tail and most of its back. Two small arms hung from its chest and it had thickly muscled legs.

The most prominent feature of it, however, was its domed head. It looked to be reinforced by extra bone, decorated by a ring of spikes which also framed its snout and deep red eyes.

I'd never seen anything like it before. It looked up to Ayd and cawed a little babyish sound as it hopped up and down for attention.

He laughed as he swept it up into a hug. "Yes, yes. You're a good boy, aren't you? Did you like those treats?" He tickled the creature's stomach, making it gurgle a laugh, though I was thoroughly weirded out by watching him use baby talk. Somehow, it just didn't seem to fit.

"I've got to figure out a way to get you to eat away from my pack though," he lamented, the creature oblivious to his concerns as it clamoured for more attention.

I leaned closer towards it. "What _is_ that?"

He grinned. "A cranidos. They're extinct now, but a few have been cloned for places like zoos and that. They're under strict breeding laws too; it's a miracle I ever managed to get Chris to reserve him for me."

I stared at the creature, amazed. "That's the pokémon you had Chris holding for you?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh. This little guy's Phos. I've wanted a cranidos ever since I saw a picture of one in school all those years ago. And now I have this little guy. Don't I?"

I watched in silence as he continued to baby the creature before he let it scamper off to play with Loki. I wondered just why my pokémon weren't rushing to my side since I'd awoken, but once I caught site of Loki bouncing around with the cranidos I realised that they were being distracted for a bit; enjoying themselves and not worrying about me for once.

More than that, they were giving me time alone with Ayd. I'd complained to them constantly about having to speak with him and it seemed they were making sure I went through with it.

I rubbed my face with a groan and pulled the blanket up to my shoulders. "This is really warm," I mumbled as I pinched the bridge of my nose. "And it smells like sweat. And deodorant."

"That's because it happens to be my coat," Adryan informed me, completely deadpan. I blinked and stared down at it long enough to see the telltale pockets and buttons, barely hiding the blush as I tried to offer it back to him.

"It's alright," he told me with a wave of his hand. "I'm warm enough by the fire. Ice adaption or no, you were out of it for a while, so it's probably best if you keep warm." He smiled at me once before all humour dropped from his face. "So what the hell were you thinking in going in there alone?"

I stared at the ground, completely embarrassed. "I wanted a psychic," I mumbled, weakly.

He leant forwards expectantly. "And?"

I heard a small laugh escape my throat. "I think I've reconsidered my stance on that. The only ones I've met that didn't belong to you have all tried to kill me. I think I'm going to play by logic and avoid them from now on."

"Huh," he grunted and leant back on the sand. "You're lucky Myos found you when he did. I had him, Willow and Ripper all looking through Mirage Tower for you. By the time I got there, it'd been completely covered by sand and no one had seen you leave. You really should have waited around for someone to accompany you in there, you know?"

I pulled a face at him. "In all fairness, I wasn't expecting to have a group of baltoy try and sacrifice me to their claydol elder... god... whatever that was."

He winced. "Alright, point." With a shake of his head he looked around the small camp and stared at my most recent pokémon. "Nice charmeleon by the way."

"Glad you think so," I grunted. "He hates humans. He tries to attack me every time we're alone and he even ditched me up in the tower there."

Once again the man before me winced. "Okay. Maybe not so nice then. He got a name?"

I shook my head. "Nothing yet. If you like him so much, you should take him. He's not exactly making my life easier."

Adryan looked at the charmelon for a moment, seemed to consider it but then shook his head. "He's _your_ pokémon. You've gone through the effort of getting surgery on him. _You're_ the one who's attempted to bond with him despite the fact he hates humans and you've even managed to earn a little bit of his respect."

I shrugged. "I suppose... wait, what? I've earned his respect? _How_? And how did you even find that out?"

He grinned. "I have two psychics and a ghost that can communicate with me. I can find out a lot more about your pokémon than you with a lot less effort. Myos told me that you got into an argument with him and punched him on the snout. Apparently you impressed him with the fact you attacked him without a weapon."

I looked toward the pokémon with a raised eyebrow and shook my head dismissively. "Sure, I've earned a bit of his respect. It's not helping the fact that he won't listen to me."

"Because _every_ pokémon listens to you once it begins to respect you," Ayd drawled. "You impressed it. That doesn't mean he has to listen to you. You've only impressed him with yourself as a person. You haven't done anything to help in terms of battling."

I frowned and looked into the fire. "I pointed out things with the claydol," I mumbled, vaguely recalling the battle.

He snorted. "One battle. Obviously it should have realised how much of a master you are."

I glared and threw a handful of sand at him. "Okay. So I got my hopes up. You don't need to completely rip me to pieces about it."

"Well I think I'm entitled to, after the way you ridiculed me," he shot back with a grin. "Or have you conveniently forgotten all that abuse you gave me?"

"Alright," I relented. "Am I to be expecting continual insults as retribution then?"

He grinned once more. "You should just expect them period. Do you not know me enough to realise this?"

"I can hope, can't I?" I smiled and shook my head. The small silence between us made me realise something; he hadn't yet asked me anything to do with Dewford. Or anything whilst he was in the Origin Cluster. It was like he was actively avoided it.

It was what I'd wanted for a while and it was the reason why I went to the Mirage Tower in the first place.

Yet I couldn't sit there in silence, not knowing why he wasn't saying anything.

"Why the change?" I asked rather abruptly. He looked up sharply as I shook my head to myself. "Before... back in Mauville. You were pretty much telling me you weren't my friend anymore if I wasn't going to tell you anything about what happened to me. Now you're not saying anything about it."

The orange glow of the fire barely showed the red in his face. He made a strangled sound as he rubbed the back of his necked before finally he sighed and stared at me. "I... I kinda realised I was being incredibly selfish. I shouldn't have tried to force you into telling me something you obviously didn't want to share. I mean, I'm meant to be your friend; I'm meant to support you, not be an ass and make you do exactly what I want."

I shrugged with one side more than the other. "I can see why you did that though. I was putting you and your pokémon in danger. _I'm _not exactly a good friend if I expect you to put yourself and those you care about in danger without a damn good explanation."

He pulled a face. "Yeah... but you don't really need to give me one if you don't want to." He leant back and rolled his shoulder until there was a loud clicking sound. "I, uh, did like you said – I checked around with what's been happening in Dewford. If that's what happened to you I can see why you didn't want to share _that_."

I felt myself hide my chin underneath his coat. It meant he had to know about that all. In spite of the face that I was a killer, he was still supporting me. The fact that he hadn't run away screaming or reported me to police or anything meant that I could trust him.

I stared at my knees through the coat and thought about it all. It was past time that I let the truth out. Even if he hadn't given me the whole truth about everything, Adryan had pretty much adopted me as a younger brother. Even if he ditched me when I told him, I knew that I owed him the truth.

I took a breath before I looked up at him. "No... you deserve to know. You've put yourself out on an arm and a limb for me all the time – you pretty much took the whole showing me the ropes thing above and beyond what you needed to. You've done all that without any sort of real explanation... so it's about time that you actually knew it all." I shook my head and breathed out a long breath. I couldn't understand why I was so nervous about it all. All I needed to do was tell the truth about a few things. It wasn't the most difficult task I'd ever had to do, nor was it the most dangerous. Yet somehow, it made my stomach churn and bubble with anticipation more than anything else ever did.

"Ask me what you want," I told him, forcing the thoughts into words. "I'll answer whatever you want honestly."

He looked shocked for a moment, though a small smirk crept onto his face afterwards. "_Anything_ I ask?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, anything. Though if you're going to waste it all asking ludicrous questions about my sex life or whether or not I was birthed from a mareep, you might as well safe yourself the bother."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Adyran laughed. "'Birthed from a mareep'?" he parroted.

I grinned. "Believe it or not, I _do_ know you well enough to expect some jokes."

He smiled. "I suppose." He shrugged and moved slightly closer towards the fire, staring at it as all humour faded from his face and posture. "So... Dewford." He pulled a face, almost like he was chewing on the question. "Did you... I mean did they..." he sighed and shook his head. "That thing about the gardevoir... and the trainer. Was that you?"

I shuddered at the mention of it alone. It seemed right that he would ask it first; he'd only just discussed it, though he'd also seen my reaction to his gardevoir and listened to me nearly forcing him to keep the demon away from me.

It was still the hardest thing to try and vocalise though.

I swallowed. "It... it was. Sort of. Mostly." I scoffed a small, scornful laugh and hated myself for being too weak to talk about it easily. "I was exploring in the caves around Dewford and found my way out into the forests. I got lost in there... and I found these little clusters of leech seeds, left by some sceptile."

I looked up to the sky and saw it all play before me once more; seeing it in perfect clarity within my mind's eye. "I trekked through the forests for a while, trying to make sure I didn't come across the sceptile that had left them... I did. Though not in the way I first thought. They'd been skinned; their organs were slopping out of their bodies, the area stank of blood... everything just screamed that I had to get away from there. Anything that could kill two sceptile like that wasn't something I wanted to come across.

"But I didn't get to run," I said, a great, cold knot twisting in my stomach. I didn't want to say the rest... the words died in my throat, forming a great big lump. I forced the words past the lump and found my vision blurring under a liquid haze.

"Something knocked me into a tree with some sort of psychic force. I woke up... and I was pinned to a tree. All through psychic force. I figured... I figured it was going to skin me alive. I figured I was going to become part of that gruesome fucker's dress." I glanced at Ayd just the once and saw the horror and pity on his face. I felt like I'd been stabbed in the stomach at that. He was my best friend; the person that had always treated me as an equal. I couldn't take him pitying me.

"I was only _partly_ right though," I whispered, chokingly. "There was this hariyama... the demon made it appear... and it... and it... and it _raped_ it!" I felt a tear slip down my chin and hiccupped pitifully. "The demon... it pressed that damn emotion spike into the hariyama... it made it _enjoy_ being raped! And then it... it started skinning it! Alive! In front of me! And it... it told me I'd be next.

"But then I realised there was another gardevoir hiding... the one that was pinning me to the tree," I recalled, shaking violently and barely keeping myself from sobbing. "The one it the trees, it was the main demon's mate... it _enjoyed _watching it rape and skin things! And then... once the demon was done with the hariyama... it... it... it told me I was next."

The tears were pouring from my eyes without rest. My nose dripped and my body convulsed as I hugged my knees, desperately wishing I never had to say another word.

It was almost like Adryan had read my mind when I felt him press a hand on my shoulder and squeeze it gently. "You don't have to say anything else if you don't want to."

I shook my head, still sobbing. "No... I... I need to say it. The demoness... it came over to me. It wouldn't let me go... I pleaded... I begged... I threatened it. It wouldn't let me escape. Then... then... it sliced open my bottoms... and then... and then... it pressed that damn spike into me... and it made me _react_ to it. It... it tried to make me _like_ the fact it was sucking on my neck."

I felt my shoulder squeezed again and hugged my knees even tighter. I was so close to revealing it all. There was only a little left. Just another few sentences and it would all be over with.

"My bandolier has an emergency release button. I managed to press it... my pokémon got out and they killed them. They killed those cursed bastards and gave them exactly what they deserved! Except-" I shook my head and stared past the fire, fixing my gaze on my pokémon in the distance. The sight of them, calm and happy made me a little calmer, a little bit more able to speak.

"Their trainer appeared some time later. He didn't seem bothered at all that I'd killed two of his pokémon. He... he didn't seem to care at all." His face appeared in my vision. The same cruel, taunting face. The same cloak he wore. The same simple insignia marking him as a champion. "He saw me. He saw that they'd stripped me. He saw that they'd tried to rape me. And he... he _laughed._ He laughed at the fact they'd tried... that they'd tried to do _that_ to me. I had a gun... and... and I shot him. Between the eyes. He was a Hoenn champion and he let that happen! He laughed at it! He laughed and... and... and..."

I couldn't say anything else. I burst into tears completely. I felt Adryan squeeze my shoulder once more and I buried my face in his in an instant. His arms wrapped around me as I sobbed my heart out, remembering it all. I felt every vile emotion I felt that day. I felt every fear again. Every horrible touch on my skin. It all came back to me and forced itself out in saline grief.

For the first time though, I felt safe. I felt like nothing could do that to me again... like it had never happened in the first place.

I ended up crying until my eyes had dried out and Adryan's shirt was soaked with my tears, snot and drool. The whole while he said nothing; he just held me and let me cry. Only when I finally sat back up did I realise how hard I'd gripped onto him; that I'd actually managed to cause finger-sized bruises around his shoulders.

"S-sorry," I grunted as I wiped my eyes with my palms.

He held my arms a moment and smiled. "S'alright," he said as he tried to peel the damp shirt from his shoulder. "You needed to get it out; I understand. For what it's worth, I'm sorry I made you relive it."

I shook my head and managed to smile. "It's okay," I reassured him. "I... I feel better now that I've spoke about it. I never mentioned it before; I just buried it as far as it could possibly go. I thought... I cried for a week straight afterwards, you know?" I managed to say with a small laugh. "I thought I'd long since cried all my tears out."

He gave me a small, soft smile. "Funny thing about tears, you're never completely out of them." He patted my shoulder and made sure I was absolutely certain I was alright before he snatched his pack from the floor and changed into a cleaner, non-snot-soaked shirt. "I feel bad that there's still more I want to know," he admitted as he sat down in front of me, holding his dirty top near the fire to dry.

I wiped my eyes again and grinned. "I told you I'd answer whatever you wanted me to. _That_ undoubtedly was the hardest thing to go through. I promise I won't break down like that again."

He nodded, though seemed completely reluctant to push any matter further. "Yeah," he said with a tiny shrug. "But after a full-on break down like that, I can't really ask more can I?"

"I'm the one that told you to, aren't I?" I pointed out. "Besides, it wasn't much of a break down, was it? I was only crying."

He looked at me, one eyebrow above the other, disbelief obvious. "You were crying for over _an hour."_

I blinked. "What?" It certainly didn't _feel_ like I was crying for an hour! And yet, when I looked around the camp, I found that most of the pokémon had gone to sleep; mine huddled together in the cold of the night, sleeping with each other. Ayd's doing the same. Although in the distance I saw the charmeleon, as well as the claydol and also Ripper, all seemingly talking about something.

I grunted a small amused sound. "I guess it could have been an hour then."

"It was," Adryan informed me, deathly serious. "Your pokémon even came over a few times, wondering how you were. You just didn't seem to notice them. I even spoke to them _and_ you, but you still didn't seem to realise. Eventually they took my word that I'd make sure you were okay before they went to sleep."

I stared once more and blinked, trying to remember it. I couldn't recall any of my pokémon ever coming near me. I couldn't remember anything other than the fact I was crying. Everything just seemed to be a complete blank spot.

"I... thanks," I whispered, full of gratitude.

He smiled a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck. "See why I don't really want to press you anymore? It seems kinda cruel."

"I suppose," I agreed as I stared at the sky. There was no moon, only clouds and they drifted lazily across the dim expanse, suiting my calm mood rather perfectly at the time. "But the important points now are that I'm not tired and I know what I'm like; if you ask me tomorrow, I'm likely to try and get out of telling you everything. It's taken a damn lot of courage to make myself tell you all this; you don't know how much I want to run away screaming and hide underneath a rock. Even though the worst part is over. So _I'd _rather you do ask me; it's not being cruel if I tell you to, is it?"

He gave me a small smirk as he pulled his drying shirt away from the fire. "There are many things I can make of that line of conversation. Be thankful I appreciate that this is a serious conversation." I groaned as he chuckled to himself. "So alright then, back to actual questions. What happened to cause the whole ghost stalking you thing? I've never heard of a makuhita coming back from death to kill someone."

I blew out a breath. At least it wasn't another soul-crushing conversation. He knew I'd killed once trainer. What was one more to that figure? At least, if he had killed Owen, it meant we had something more in common.

"It wasn't a makuhita," I told him. "Well, it was at first. I caught him in Granite Cave – even managed to bond with him for a few days. I actually quite liked him," I confided with a poignant grin. "But... I'd felt like I'd been followed for a few days. Turns out I had been; by a shedinja."

Adryan's hissed breath told me all the disbelief and surprise he had towards that. I offered him a small, deathly serious look as I continued, "The shedinja came after us in the cave. It was in the dark and I didn't have Lacey under control then. She all but fed me to the shedinja then and there, thinking if I died, she could be free. It managed to kill the makuhita, but I managed to kill the shedinja with a lighter and some deodorant. But because I'd killed the shedinja's shell-"

"It took over the closest available thing," Ayd finished for me. He whistled a low amazed sound as he contemplated it all. "So how'd you end up with a shedinja trying to kill you?"

I chuckled nervously. "Well, funny story that. You see, that started in the Petalburg Woods. Long story short, I ended up with a load of bugs hunting me, trying to eat me. I managed to get away from them and found out they were being controlled by someone. It was that Sinnohian Elite – Aaron? He was there just happily taking travellers out of commission, feeding on them like his insects."

Adryan stared at me, open mouthed. "You have _got_ to be kidding me. An _Elite_ was doing that?"

I gave him a sharp look. "A champion let his demons go around skinning things in Dewford. You think an Elite's going to be above using their power?" He gave me a small, apologetic look before I sighed and apologised to him. "Aaron was picking people off, abusing the fact that he could get away with it. He tried doing it to me too. I fell into this pit and he set an ariados on me."

Adryan looked like a child being given a bedtime story. "What happened?"

I shrugged. "I shot it. I found the remains of a Johto champion and realised Aaron was something that I couldn't mess around with. I lucked out and escaped; I crawled through the decomposing body of a gyarados – remind me _never_ to do that again – and fell into a stream. But he caught up with me later on, just after I'd met Lacey. She tried to kill me when we first met and I knew I couldn't let Aaron carry on killing people. So I convinced Lacey to help me kill him."

Granted it was more of a case of she believed I could kill her if she disobeyed, but it was still technically convincing her.

Adryan pulled a face as he hugged his knees. "You killed an Elite..." he whispered, shell shocked.

"I had to," I told him. "I've never claimed to be morally pure. It could be said that I'm far from it," I whispered with a scornful laugh. "But I can't stand around and leave someone to kill loads of innocents."

Adryan shook his head. "Yeah... but an _Elite._ They found out he'd ingested poison; there's a whole big investigation into it. There's a load of hoopla about it now; the Sinnoh government think the Hoenn one killed him, whereas the Hoenn government think he was a Sinnoh spy."

I groaned and placed my head between my knees. I knew that wasn't good. It could never have ended well. But it had to be obvious that no one would have forcefully fed him it. He was in the middle of the woods, away from anyone else and consumed a plant that grew there. I convinced myself they'd find Lacey's cabin and just think he was the latest victim of a serial killer.

"I was only trying to help," I whispered. "I didn't want to cause a whole big incident or something. I just wanted to stop innocent people dying."

Adryan slapped his hands on his knees. "Well what did you think would happen when people found an _Elite_ was dead? That people would think 'Oh, that's a shame, that' and then carry on skipping through the woods?" He sighed and dropped his head, staring despondently at the sandy dunes beneath us. "But... I can't blame you. I might not have been able to do the same in your position, but many people would have. He would have got off without any charges... it probably would have been pinned on someone who the government wanted to put away.

"I can't blame you for it and I'm sure as hell not going to say anything about it," he revealed. "It was... in some twisted, perverse, illegal way, the right thing to do. More than that though; what sort of friend would I be to make you suffer an emotional break down and then condemn you to becoming a human pincushion for the rest of your life, all in one night?"

I stared at him, completely confused. "What do you mean by that? Wouldn't I just be executed?"

He looked at me, blinked and then stared with an open mouth. "You sure you're actually not completely out of tune with reality? How can you _not_ know about the stereotypical prison jokes?"

I shrugged and felt myself becoming increasingly embarrassed. "All I know is it's where people who commit crimes go. I don't get why there'd be jokes about it."

He blinked again. "Dropping the soap?"

"Huh?" I grunted, confused.

He pressed the issue, "Getting human booster shots?"

"What?"

"Needing a doughnut?"

I frowned. "What does food have to do with prison? Isn't it just where people get sent to when they do crimes? They get secluded away from people, locked away and are left to starve to death or just executed, depending on their crimes?"

Adryan leant closer, truly confused. "You're... joking right? You're just pulling my leg. How can you _not_ know about prisons?"

I buried my chin in his coat again. "I do!" I snapped, truly embarrassed with my lack of knowledge. "People do something bad, then they're locked away, killed or made to repay for it by serving the community."

"Where do you come from?" he wondered, perplexed. "How... just _how_ is it you seem to think people are being killed in prison? Capital punishment's been out of action for forty years."

Give it ten and it'll be a social norm.

"Prison. It's notorious for gay jokes," Adryan informed me. "It's a large institute full of only one gender, locked away for years at a time. It's well known that if you go there, you're going to end up becoming some long-term inmate's bitch."

I nodded. It made sense. Take people away from the opposite sex for a while and eventually they would turn to each other to satisfy their urges. It wasn't unheard of... and at least it was better than them turning to pokémon. Or the dead.

One thing still confused me though. "So... what's a doughnut?"

* * *

It was probably about an hour later when Adryan felt the awkwardness had died and he could talk to me again. I have to admit though, seeing him try and explain a doughnut was quite possibly one of the funniest conversations I'd ever had with him. I was half-tempted to ask him for an explanation on where babies come from, just to see how awkward he'd be around that.

He finally sat next to me around the fire and gave me a small, barely amused snort. "Please, _never_ make me have to explain anything like that again to you. That was several levels of weird and awkward, all at once."

I pouted at him. "Ah, come on, please? Surely there's something else you could tell me about?" I tapped my finger against my chin in pantomime thought. "So what's this whole thing with dropping the soap?"

He made a strangled gasp as he leapt away, shaking his head all the while. "No, no, no, _no!_ I am _not _having this conversation with you! I'm not listening! I'm not!" he protested as he stuck his fingers in his ears. "La, la, la, la, la!"

I broke down laughing on the spot. "You're reaction..." I wheezed, gripping my sides. "Man that was totally worth it. You're such a prude!"

He flushed bright red and poked a finger in the ground. "I'm not a prude," he murmured. "I just find it incredibly awkward to have to explain things like that with someone listening so attentively! It's freaky! You shouldn't be _that_ engrossed in learning those sorts of things! You looked like I was teaching you about the different ways you can flatten oddish into bank notes!"

I perked up immediately. "You can do that?"

"Something save me," he groaned as he buried his face in his hands. "Just so you know-" he waved his finger between us, "-you and me, we're not _nearly_ close enough to be discussing the various different ways people use tools to ease the pain after butt sex. Or _anything_ in detail regarding that sort of activity. I do _not_ like having that amount of attention put on me, end of – least of all from you." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Gods, it's like trying to explain to my sister what a blowjob is."

I cocked my head. "You have a sister?" That was news to me. He'd never mentioned anything about her before. In fact, apart from passing mentions about from his parents, he'd almost never discussed his family. I caught myself as I was pondering that – I knew that little about that aspect of his life that I didn't even know his surname!

He nodded. "Yeah. She's seventeen at the moment. I think." He stopped and counted on his fingers. "Yeah, seventeen. And no, you're not sleeping with her!" he snapped quickly, giving me a huge glare. "Touch her in any way and I swear I'll lock you in a room full of eighty year olds having old people sex!"

I pictured it for only a moment and shuddered in revulsion. "So wait, you're happy to talk to me about old people sex, yet not anything else? That's weird."

He floundered, hand jittering as he tried to think of something to say. "That's different."

"Whatever," I said with a shrug. "So if you're not wanting to talk about those things in such detail, does that mean I can?" I grinned impishly before he could even think of a reply. "So what's your opinion on mast-"

"_I'm not listening!"_ he yelped and clamped his hands over his ears instantly.

I cackled evilly as I fell back against the sand. "Prude."

He glared at me. "I am not a prude. But, whatever, believe it if you must. I just don't like the fact about talking about anything like that anywhere near my pokémon. I can't help but think that somehow it could get back to someone I really don't want finding out about anything, which coupled with the rule of Chinese whispers means that they'll get completely the wrong end of the stick."

"You worry too much," I pointed out.

"Hey, stranger things have happened," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "Talking of; I've got my third and final question. Since we've had emotional breakdowns, confessions of a teen killer and now perverse sexual education, I think it's time we add something else to that list."

I was clueless as to what he could want to ask next. As far as I was concerned I'd managed to give an answer to every obvious question my actions had ever produced. I rolled my shoulders to click my back as I told him to go ahead.

"You're not really from Kismet, are you?" he asked, a devious glint in his eyes. "That's not the question," he said just as I opened my mouth, "but it's me just thinking it through. It was when you were applying for a trainer form; you took way too long to write that down. Most people would write it instantly, say they don't know, or stumble and ask how it's spelt. You looked like you were thinking about it all. Which means that you're not from there and you're actually from somewhere you don't want people knowing about. And since you're being all honest with me tonight..."

He grinned and I could see where the conversation was going. My heart had already begun to pound in my chest. I knew the answer I would have to give. I knew the possible reactions it would cause. I knew that I'd had the exact same conversation with my pokémon, yet with Adryan it seemed so much more... important? Nerve-wracking? Intimidating? I couldn't put my finger on the feelings at the time.

"So where exactly are you from then?" he asked as he leant forwards, hands in his lap. "Are you a prison baby? Did you get born there and never told of them, thus producing your complete lack of knowledge towards them?"

I snorted softly. "If only," I mumbled. I took a breath and my words died in my throat constantly, my own body refusing to put them into words. I hissed at myself and tried to force it into happening. _Come on solider; truth! Now! That's an order!_

"I'm not from Kismet," I told him. "Well, I am, but not exactly," I allowed, the words seemingly pouring out my mouth. "I'm not from _this _Kismet. I'm not from _this_ anything. I'm... well... I'm from the future."

Never had I found the words coming out of my mouth sounding so stupid and full of bad-film-plot cliché.

Unsurprisingly Adryan burst out laughing. "Yeah, future, good one. Let me guess, a magical pink celebi appeared before you and warped you back into the past and told you that you had to do a mission of great importance to save the future?" He leant forwards and winked. "Were there robots in your _'future'_? Has mankind started fighting them for fuel and dominance?"

"It wasn't pink," I mumbled, extremely aware of my burning ears.

Adryan stopped short. "Huh?" he grunted.

"It wasn't pink," I told him, speaking louder. "The celebi. It was green... ish. And it didn't tell me anything either, it just made everything explode into green light, then I found myself in some woman's house and being told pretty much what you said." I frowned and stared at the sand beneath me. "Except for robots. There's no robots where I'm from. There's no... nothing."

"_Ri-ight_," Adryan drawled. "Are you sure you just weren't abducted by little green clefairy? I mean, I believe you about everything before; no one is _that_ good of an actor. But the future? Really?"

"I'm not making it up!" I snapped, glaring at him as fiercely as I could. "Go get your big freaky claydol!" I ordered him, waving my arm in the pokémon's general direction. "Get it to read my thoughts. Get it to share the images with you or something! That doesn't give you a brain tumour, so you'll see everything just like I saw it!"

He watched me silently for a moment, evaluating me like I was a weird foreign object from another time on display. Which in a way, I suppose I was. Finally he stood up and called over his claydol, which hovered over to us without delay.

I looked up and watched them both stood – floating in Myos' case – there in silence. The claydol's eyes lit up every so often and I knew it had to be speaking to him telepathically. I watched and wondered how Adryan could speak to it in silence. Could he share thoughts with it? The very idea of that made my mind wander; could I learn to do that to?

I snapped out of my reverie as Myos appeared before me like a spectre, floating in eerie silence before me.

_[We are told you wish us to view your memories,]_ it grunted directly into my brain, bringing the familiar sting of pain. _[We can do so, but only with your permission. Do you wish us to do this mortal?]_

I nodded determinedly. "Do it," I commanded it. "This is the only way he'll believe me. And, well... it'll be nice to know that someone else will know exactly what my time is like."

The claydol hummed some sort of toneless tune. _[Very well mortal.]_

I felt the strange presence in my mind spread out, slowly and tentatively touching different parts of my brain. It was slow at first and felt like there was a gentle heat slowly spreading through my head.

Then once the heat filled my head, the images started flashing in my brain. Every single experience of my lifetime was condensed into a ten-second long picture show, leaving me on the floor reeling, my eyes spinning in their sockets and a thin trickle of blood oozing from my nose.

I felt the claydol's presence in my mind again as some invisible force helped me back to my feet. _[We apologise, mortal. We would have extracted the images slower, but there is only so long we can spend within your mind.]_

I nodded, woozy on my feet. "What... what do you mean?" I asked of it.

The soft humming was back again. _[We are psychic. Our powers are driven by a factor of four; instinct, emotion, conscious and unconscious effort. When we spend too long within your mind, instinct and unconscious effort break free, screaming at our core to kill you.]_

I swallowed the bile that raced up my throat in fear. "Wh-what do you mean?"

_[Fear not mortal,]_ it commanded me. _[Attachment of consciousness like actions of sharing thoughts is a final step of predatory nature. We shut down our prey's mind from the inside; granting it a quick, painless death. It is instinct and it is why trainers have to spend so long training us before attempting such a connection.]_

I nodded quickly, fearfully. "Good to know."

_[We are pleased you think so,]_ the claydol hummed again. _[Many trainers ignore the advice of psychics and other pokémon. It is most foolish.]_ With that it left me, standing there and feeling somewhat emptier in the head as it floated over towards Adryan.

I couldn't just stand around like a lemon though as Myos transferred _my_ memories to Adryan. I walked towards them as Adryan's eyes rolled backwards in his head and he collapsed to the floor, nose bleeding and groaning softly.

Seeing that I jogged the last few steps, even though I heard him whisper he was okay. It must have been exactly what happened to me, I realised.

When Adryan finally managed to pull himself up he remained sitting on the sand, holding his head with one hand and pinching his nose with the other. Only when he saw me did he offer a small smile and attempt to stand up again.

"You..." he breathed as he gave up trying to stand, instead just sitting on the floor. "You... you're really from the future, aren't you?"

I grinned as I sat down next to him. "Well, I _did_ try telling you that, but _someone_ didn't seem to believe me."

"It's not exactly the easiest thing to believe," he shot back. Instantly afterwards he sighed and apologised as he stared at the night-sky above. "I don't believe it," he whispered, seemingly to himself. "Those people... they actually could have been telling the truth."

That caught my attention. I leant forward eagerly, asking what he meant. I was certain that I was a first-case; but what if there'd been other people, before I'd managed to come along? What if I wasn't the only choice, but rather the last one? What if everyone before me had failed?

I forced myself to stop thinking about it quickly. I knew it would only confuse and distract me in the future.

Adryan rubbed his eyelids as he obviously tried to remember it all. "There was this kid a few years back; had a girafarig with him. He managed to cause a controversy because he did a few things that got the media's attention. Then he claimed that there was something we needed to do; something in particular we had to stop... or start... or change in order to stop... or make something happened." He cursed as he glared up at the heavens. "Why can't I remember any of it?"

I fought away any stray ideas towards his amnesia as I gripped his shoulders, making him face me. "What happened to him?" I demanded. "Did he succeed? What happened?"

"I... don't know," Adryan whispered as he rubbed his head, then decided to smack it with a palm instead. "Why can't I remember? I know... I know the kid just disappeared one day. Like one minute he was there, the next he wasn't. His pokémon too. I remember... I remember there was an investigation for a while. But then every record of what he'd said just vanished and no one seemed able to remember what he'd done... what he'd said, or even what he looked like."

I dropped my hands from his shoulders as I sunk to the sand. He'd disappeared. I remember feeling almost heartbroken at the news; it was like my only chance for finding out what had happened had just upped and vanished – my hopes built up and then crushed lower than they originally had been.

He'd vanished without a trace, with all records of his existence eradicated. I thought that maybe someone like Erica's group could have done something like that, but I knew they couldn't have made the unknown public like Adryan forget. Not really.

"Maybe..." Adryan whispered, drawing my attention. He frowned and gripped his knees hard, concentration palpable. "Maybe he really was from the future. Maybe... maybe he managed to do exactly what he needed to do. If he changed everything, then maybe... maybe he just vanished because everything had been changed and his future never existed... so he'd never existed. Or maybe his time was up; he might have only been allowed here until he'd done his job, then was plonked back in his own world."

I felt like someone had ripped my heart out and left a huge hole in my being. The thought of everything Adryan had told me stung worse than I could have ever imagined. I knelt there on the sand for a while, just... thinking.

What if I managed to succeed? Did that mean I'd disappear too? Would everyone forget I'd ever existed, all traces of me removed from existence? What about my pokémon, what would happen to them? Would they be warped with me? He said the girafarig vanished too; did that vanish with the person?

If they didn't, would they forget me too? Would they end up wherever I was at the time, alone, confused and having forgotten everything? If they did, what would happen? Would Lacey kill them all? Would Erra still be so timid? Would they help save the world, only to forget and kill each other?

Would everyone I knew forget me too? Erica... Chris... Mia... Adryan? Would they all forget I ever existed, left only with the obvious strange feeling that they should remember me, yet couldn't?

Could I honestly complete the task, knowing such a thing would happen?

"I... I can't..." I whispered as I stared despondently at the floor.

I felt Adryan's eyes settle on me as he moved to face me. "Can't what?" he asked.

I shook my head, focused only on the floor. "I can't... I can't do this... I can't be expected to come along and save everything... if I'm only going to die, or vanish, or who knows what in the end!"

"Hey," Adryan whispered. "No one said that would happen. For all we know, you could still be here afterwards."

I slapped away his hands as he tried to place them on my shoulders. "I'm not a child Adryan!" I shouted at him. "I heard what you said! If I do what I need to, I'm just going to vanish and everyone's going to forget about me! I don't know what'll happen to my pokémon; they could just warp out of existence like me, or they could get stuck there and end up killing each other if _they_ don't remember it all either! I can't skip along and happily save the world knowing they're going to kill each other and no one that's become important to me will remember me!"

I found my head shoved onto his shoulder yet again. I think I would have cried once more, if I was able to. Instead I just remained there, shocked into stillness, unable to feel anything, unable to think anything apart from the soul-shattering news that I'd just up and vanish from everything.

I knew then... I convinced myself that it wasn't something I could happily do. I couldn't force my pokémon to go through a potentially lethal reward. I knew if it was just myself... if I hadn't met anyone... if I was completely alone, I could have done it with ease. But since I'd formed those bonds, it kept me from wanting to do it.

I was slapped in the face with a brutal reminder of the past. _Put compassion aside. Leave it behind. The moment you develop it, you've started along a road that will only end in your death._

I remembered it so clearly and not just through the claydol flashing my memories at me. It was one of the first things I ever learnt in education; one of the few things that was ingrained into us from a young age.

I'd come into this world, experienced it and decided that such a philosophy on life was wrong.

And then it slapped me in the face with how right it was.

I remember being there; held by Adryan as he thought I was crying again, him reassuring me that everything would be okay. Deep down I knew it wasn't going to be. I remember that I couldn't think of anything at the time but how much the world had changed me; how much of my old life I'd deserted and how much I'd potentially screwed myself over.

It wasn't fair.

I'd ditched my old life, thinking my new one was for the better. I'd escaped it because I hated almost everything about it, only to discover that no matter what I hated about it, nothing changed the fact that _it was right._

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut as I pushed myself off Adryan, staring unseeingly past him.

"We'll find a way around it, I promise," he told me as he shook me by the shoulders. "What if I did whatever you need to do? What if it wasn't you that dealt the final blow?"

I blinked to focus myself and shook my head at him. "You saw what my world's like. Living in constant fear of pokémon; having disease spread through the nations, having nations attack nations and everything turning on you because of some sort of pandemic... there's not one blow that can stop all that. That much is obvious; I've just been refusing to see it all this time. There's not _one_ thing I need to do, but many little things. Everything must have snowballed. I must have already let a few things happen that shouldn't have. I can't stop it all. There's too much to do. I can't stop what everything's meant to become! I-"

Adryan struck me, _hard_ with the back of his hand. I fell to the floor and looked up at him, rubbing my sore cheek as he rubbed his hand.

"Stop acting like that," he growled. "I've known you for a few months now and you're one of my best friends. For heaven's sakes, I've _seen_ your entire history in my own mind! You're not a quitter, I know that much for certain." He sighed and offered a hand to me. "Now, how long do we have left until it's all irreversible?"

I let him pull me to my feet as the time stuck out in my brain like a neon sign. "Until the end of the year," I told him, defeated.

"Oh... fuck," he whispered, arms dropping to his side uselessly.

I sniffed. "Yeah. Welcome to my hopeless world."

"It's not hopeless," he told me, even though he didn't seem to think so himself. "We just need to figure out exactly what we're doing. If we work that out, then we'll know what to do."

I looked up at him, bewildered. "What's this 'we' about? I'm the stupid tool that's been chosen to try and do this. I'm the one that knows exactly what I've got to stop the world becoming and it was me that bastard imp celebi chose for the job!"

He folded his arms and gave me a stern look. "And did it ever say that you had to do this alone? I've seen exactly what happened, remember? I know it didn't so much as even give you a 'to do' list, which means that it doesn't care _how_ you get the job done, just as long as you get it done."

"I..." my words faltered as I saw the conviction in his face. "Why are you volunteering to help me? Twenty minutes ago, you didn't believe me."

He grinned. "Hey, I'm your friend, aren't I? It's what friends do; look out for each other, provide each other with amusement, help each other to save the world. It'll all in the job description, just look it up on the internet." He winked and laughed. "Besides, I've always liked the idea of becoming world famous. I wonder; if people realised we did it, could I get my own followers? 'The Cult of Adryan'. It sounds quite catchy, don't you think?"

"This isn't a comedy show," I told him, deathly serious. "You can't just make jokes out of this to hope it all seems better!"

"Really? And just tell me, since when did you become the expert on how to cope with dealing with the fate of the world?" he countered. "You've dealt with it in such a serious way and all it's given you is severe brain trauma and a lot of missing hours sleep. At least dealing with it light-heartedly you have some vain hope of kidding yourself that it's not as bad as it seems."

I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I stared at the floor. "It's not you that runs the risk of popping out of existence."

"Hey, we'll find a loophole in that, don't you worry," Adryan reassured me. It was the first time in the entire conversation that there was any sort of belief in his voice... the first time it seemed like he actually fully believed it could be possible. "Besides, I haven't told you the best part about this all yet, have I?"

I looked up sharply, hope burning in my chest. "What's that?"

He grinned a horrific impish grin. "Well, I'm privy to _all_ your memories now, aren't I?"

The fires of hope turned into ice of horror. "Oh... no. No. _No!_" I protested, shaking my head as mortification set in. "No, I don't believe you!"

"Really?" he asked, that damned grin taking over the whole of his face. "Well, if you don't believe me, I'll have to prove it to you. I mean, I doubt the pokémon centres really want to know how you've been repainting their rooms, or what you really thought of certain people. But I could always go around and throw you at people and be like, 'Hey, meet this guy. He once ran around in the snow with a plunger stuck to his butt and a photo of his army sergeant protecting his modesty."

"Oh gods," I breathed and wished for nothing more than the ground to swallow me up. He couldn't know about the hazing I had to go through! No one was ever, _ever_ going to find out about it, if I'd had my way! But he knew! It wasn't fair!

"Oh and what's this?" he continued, loving every torturous minute. "You lost your virginity to _that_ woman? Marybelle? Really, what were you thinking? She looks like she was born the wrong way round; her hands look like feet and _my god those teeth are horrible!"_

"Shut up!" I wailed and clamped my hands over my ears. Both my ears and face burnt, keeping my whole body warm in the desert night. I closed myself in as much as I could, praying to whatever god that could hear me that the ground would eat me whole and save me from such mortification. "I'm going to take that claydol apart, atom by atom," I swore.

Adryan chuckled as he crouched down next to me. "He'll sense you coming a mile off. Besides, I can ruin you socially from now own." He poked my head with a finger and laughed an evil, gleeful sound. "I know you more intimately than anyone's ever going to know you. And I'm going to lord it over you at every possible opportunity."

I sunk to the floor, groaning and defeated. "I hate you. _So much."_

He cackled again. "Payback my friend; payback. Now do you see what I mean? Sure, you're horrified beyond belief, but isn't that better than dealing with everything with such a gloomy outlook in life?"

"No," I grunted. "I'd rather be gloomy than have ever let you know, let alone _see_ any of that!"

"Too late now!" he taunted. "So seriously then; what do we do from here? You've got to have a plan? Something you've been doing all this time?"

I shook my head. "Can we talk about that later? It's not exactly a bedtime story."

He nodded, quiet and serious. "Alright. Tomorrow we'll start sorting out everything we need to do. In the mean time, we might as well get some sleep before the sandstorms start up again. It's a miracle we haven't managed to wake any of the pokémon up too. Though I think it's more a case of they've been leaving us to it."

I nodded silently as he stood up and made way to his sleeping bag. Only after a few steps did I call out after him. He stopped and turned his head, genuine confusion and worry on his face.

I flushed. "Thanks," I grunted. "For everything."

He shrugged. "I'm your friend. It's what we do. You'd do the same for me."

"Yeah..." I whispered as I watched him manoeuvre his way between the pokémon. Only when I was alone did I truly start to think on everything again; the end results of my journey, what would happen along the way and mostly whether or not I could actually go through with it or not.

Everything about compassion played in my mind again. If I'd left it behind, I could have carried on without hesitation. Since I'd regained it and made bonds, I was reluctant to do my duty. I'd disappear once I'd done what I needed to do and everyone would forget I'd ever existed in the first place.

I think... I think that day broke a little inside. It was the first major crack towards everything about me that changed afterwards. The day made me realise three things that I carried with me, always; even if you don't like something, it doesn't mean it's not the best solution, the right thing to do wasn't always the easiest, nor was it the best in everyone else's opinion and that indifference was probably the only effective method of getting everything done in the best way possible.

Though mostly I realised that no matter what, you could never truly change who you were. No matter how far away you got, something would always drag you right back down to the starting line again.

Fate... is truly a fickle bitch.


	32. Perspectives

**Author's note: **Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you all.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Perspectives

* * *

**

_In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him_ ~ Anon.

**-O-O-O-**

"_Our opinions of life and the world are defined by the way we see things. Where we see tragedy, another may see humility. Where we see joy, another may see distractions. Where we see life, another may see death yet to come. Pessimism, optimism and any other viewpoint on life is dependent on the hand fate deals us. How we play that hand shows everyone what we truly believe."_

- Nathaniel Turner, philosopher and doomsayer. _(September 29__th__, 3011)_

**-O-O-O-**

I didn't manage to sleep much that night, if at all. I found myself at one point lying on a sand dune, staring up at the sky as it slowly began to change colours from a dark blue to a lighter shade of pink. I aimlessly began to try and connect the stars with my finger, wondering what they all meant.

I'd never really bothered to try and learn the names for them, though a little part of me wished I had. It probably would have managed to distract me more than linking up stars into large, shining sky-bound genitalia.

Xander gurgled in his sleep next to me as he reached out and sprawled across one of my legs. I smiled at scratched the top of his head, watching him sleep in silent wonder.

I'd changed so much on my journey. I remember staring up the skies, unsure of whether or not it was a good thing. I'd managed to befriend my pokémon and make connections with people, ensuring that I had backup on the stupid quest I had to complete.

Yet at the same time, the bonds that linked me to them were also my undoing. It was the thought of leaving them behind that made me reluctant to do anything. I wasn't sure what would have been the better option; to carry on in a journey without any bonds tying me to people, to make the bonds and then sacrifice myself at the end, or maybe even find some sort of happy medium.

I saw six flashes of eerie crimson light approach me and forgot myself for a moment. I was about to scream and try and shoot the damned thing until I realised it was only Adryan's claydol floating up towards me.

I relaxed a little when I realised this, though I tensed again as a familiar burn assaulted my head.

_[You should rest, mortal,] _Myos urged. _[Your species are not one that can function with little or no sleep.]_

I shrugged and placed a hand behind my head. "I'll manage," I told it. "I've got too much on my mind to even begin thinking about getting to sleep, let alone achieving it."

_[We could knock you out, if you prefer?]_ the pokémon offered.

I shuddered at the thought of such a thing happening again. "I'll pass, thanks," I told him, snappishly. I felt the presence from my mind lift and saw the pokémon turn to leave before I called its name. It turned on the spot and stared at me, all six eyes glowing hauntingly in the light darkness. I chewed my bottom lip uncertainly before I managed to say, "You said before... when you found me in the tower... you told me the charmeleon injured himself battling Tyraos. Who's that?"

The claydol hummed as it moved to hover in the air next to me. _[Tyraos is the name of the claydol you encountered.]_

I leant up instantly, surprise lifting both my eyebrows up. "You knew its name?"

I felt something like a nod in my mind. _[We are claydol. Whenever we meet another of our species, we go through a split second joining of the minds with the other. It is an ancient practice started by our elders, shared down through the generations. It is now common courtesy between our species.]_

I felt a spike of rage and my entire face darkened. "So while that thing was trying to eat me, you were shaking its hand?"

_[It took less than a second for the process to occur. It is instinctive and something we cannot control. Much like you humans and your needs for destruction,] _he growled in my mind. _[By knowing the creature's name, we can honour its death with the respect it deserved, regardless of their actions while on this earth. A process which you mortals do not seem to share.]_

I forced myself to cool down and took a deep breath. "Why do you keep calling me mortal?" I asked it. "You're not exactly immortal. It's like me going around calling everyone else _human_. 'How are you, _human?', _'Do you want some tea, _human_?'"

_[Humans are a mortal species,]_ it responded flatly. _[Our spirit lives on after our bodies cease to function. Unlike humans, we are not made of flesh. We are of stone; unmoving, unchanging. We can only be destroyed by demolishing the stone we occupy, after which our spirit moves on to find another host, or we depart from the world.]_

I nodded hastily as I lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, okay. So who named that other claydol then? Is that the name they worshipped it by?"

_[Tyraos was a false icon,]_ Myos hissed. _[Claydol are all given a spirit name when we occupy the baltoy bodies we begin with. Our spirit name holds many meanings but most of all; we are named for the era in which we shall perish.]_

I blinked. "You're named for the time you die? That's morbid." I shook my head with a small smile. "But wait, I thought your spirit lived on? How can you perish then?"

_[Spirits are not immortal,]_ Myos hummed. _[Spirits cannot be broken, but they can perish. We do not know what happens once they perish, but we know they move on from this world. Tyraos was meant to perish many centuries ago. However, they extended their spirit life by unnatural means. Many baltoy and humans revered them, hoping to share in their knowledge of false-immortality.]_

I laughed a quiet, unimpressed sound. "Why is it that such things can be so easily believed?" I wondered aloud. I shook my head as I felt Myos begin to speak again and instead asked it my own question, "So when are you to die then? I've never heard of an age of Tyraos and sure as hell can't think of one called Myos."

I felt something like a smirk in my mind. _[You assume our names are given by human standards. We know when we shall perish and we know it will be a long time yet.]_

"Oh," I whispered, question unsolved. Instead I went for another point that had bothered me for some time, "What's a 'righter of time'?" I asked it. "I saw it inscribed beneath a statue in the tower but couldn't think of anything to do with it. All I saw was-"

_**[It is not your place to interfere, mortal!]**_

I yelped at the sudden ferocity of Myos' voice and clutched and my ringing ears, dimly feeling a little bit of blood trickling out of them. I managed to look at the creature with wide, fearful eyes and whispered, "W-what?

_[Do not interfere,]_ it instructed me, voice back to normal. _[Non-psychics are not to know of the righters. Such knowledge only leads to disaster. Accept your place and know not to interfere with matters that are far above you, mortal.]_

I stared at the floating pokémon, my mind buzzing with a multitude of emotions. "But... what? Now I'm just more confused."

_[Good. Do not attempt to incur the wrath of the righters, mortal. Many have done so, and only disaster awaited them.]_

The claydol simply vanished from view with those departing words. I found myself just staring into space for a while, wondering just what the creature could have meant. All I got from that was a small headache and a small dizzy feeling.

I decided then and there that psychics were one of my least favourite things in the world.

I grunted at Xander to move and tried to wake him up without surprising him. I'd done it once before and ended up taking a pressurised blast of water to the face. After an hour or two of dizziness, coupled with a day of trying to get water out of my ears, I decided that I'd never do it again.

He finally croaked a small sound and blinked sleepily at me, shuffling enough to move off my leg. I thanked him and stood up, rubbing my arms against the chill of the morning. I turned to say something to Xander but a cold shock of dread stabbed me in the back. My chest tightened and my breath dropped into quick and short breaths as unnatural terror flooded through me.

Xander croaked something and I felt a gust of cold, _too cold_ wind behind me.

I felt myself trembling without control as I turned around only to find a demon staring down at me, long sharp teeth dripping fresh blood.

A scream built and died in my throat as I leapt backwards, grabbing frantically for a weapon. The demon snapped its fingers and pressure slammed into all my limbs, trapping me in place and holding me a foot in the air.

Icy pain stabbed at each and every part of my mind. _[Greetings... kin slayer.]_

I recognised the tone and felt confusion take over some of the fear. "Willow?" I guessed.

The trained demon smiled, exposing more of the unholy teeth. _[Correct you are, kin slayer.]_ It floated around me full circle, trapping Xander in place like me when he tried to attack her. _[Now, now,]_ it whispered into my mind, making me shudder with uncontained fear and repulsion. _[Do not have your pets attack me when I come to you with an offer of peace.]_

I turned my head as much as I could. "You call this _peace_?" I snapped.

_[The best offer of it you shall receive,]_ it shot back. It flicked a little part of its dress and I blew out a small relieved breath at the length of it. At least Adryan's demon wouldn't be trying to add me to its disgusting attempts of clothing. _[You killed some of my kin. By all rights, I should slaughter you where you stand.]_

I felt my jaw drop. "Those demons in Dewford... they were your family?"

_[Gardevoir are all related,]_ it informed me. _[Whether by blood or not, we are tied as kin. You slaughtered them and I should avenge them... but it is not the reason why I approach you.]_

I snarled and tried to kick the harpy. "I don't give a shit about your deals! Let me go! You think Adryan's going to be happy about you doing this to me?"

I felt it laugh inside my skull. _[You think he shall find out? Would you tell him I did this? I certainly shall not – neither shall any of my brothers and sisters in arms.]_

The thought that all of Adryan's pokémon had conspired against me made my stomach fill with frozen dread.

"He'll wake up," I protested. "And then he'll see this and put you down like the _freak_ of nature you are."

Pressure exploded behind my eye and I screamed in pain. Something definitely burst and I felt the demon's claws touch the side of my face, taking away all the pain.

_[You think our species learn to heal for selfless reasons?]_ the gardevoir taunted me. _[Some do. The rest of us, however, learn to repair injuries for our own gain. You can only torture a creature to a certain limit. But when you can heal injuries, it makes the victim suffer almost limitless pain.] _Its clawed fingers spread out over my face, cupping my cheeks and leaving small cuts in their wake. _[I have ensured that Master Adryan shall remain asleep for our conversation. I am not a fool, kin slayer.]_

I bit back a frightened whimper and balled all my resolve into snarling, "What do you _want_ then?"

One long, thin claw gripped the bottom of my chin and pulled me forwards. _[Ultimately; your death. Until then, I am content with you to leave and never contact Master Adryan again. You bring death and destruction everywhere you go. And I will __not__ let you destroy him too!]_

"And what makes you think I'll do anything you'll say?" I hissed at the creature. "You're just a stupid, fucked up pokémon that's fallen in love with its trainer. You're just jealous because he'll never share romantic feelings for you and I'm closer to him as a friend then you'll ever be!"

It slapped me this time, hard enough to make my teeth wobble.

_**[Do not think you know of what you speak!]**_

My ears rang with the force of its mental roar. All at once I was struck with the horrific realisation that even if what I said was true, the demon was psychotic enough to manipulate something else into a reason for my death. It could be anything, from me making Adryan get a paper cut, or even have him get in trouble with some sort of authority figure and she would decide it was reason enough to kill me.

The demon's clawed hand wrapped around my face, clawed fingers gripping one side and its thumb getting dangerously close to my eye.

_[You __will__ leave,]_ it hissed. _[And you __will__ do it soon. You will put enough distance between you and Master Adryan so that you never endanger him, or I shall make you slit your own throat open. Do you understand me?]_

I said nothing and it shook my head, clawed thumb threatening to pierce my eyeball. _[Do you understand me?]_

"Yes!" I yelped, flinching as I felt a sharp point touch my eye. "I understand! I get what you mean!"

The gardevoir threw my face away. _[Then you shall do as I demand.]_

I nodded, swallowing a hard lump. "I'll make sure I don't endanger him."

The demon looked at me, eyes glowing blood-red. _[I was not asking.]_ It flashed out of sight as Lacey suddenly appeared behind it, slicing through the faded image of the demon's neck.

I dropped to the floor, panting wearily as I reached over and checked to make sure Xander was okay. Once I was certain he was I looked up only to see Lacey standing above me, murder apparent in her face.

"I'm fine," I told her, refusing to submit to the crazed demon. "It's gone now and the next time it tries anything like that, I'll kill it myself."

The nuzleaf folded her arms and uttered an intelligible syllable at my expense. She turned away and made sure the gardevoir was well and truly gone before she watched me stand up.

"Where's Loki?" I asked her. "And the charmeleon?"

She pointed in either direction, showing me Loki asleep with the eerie sight of Ripper's one, glowing red eye hovering above it and the charmeleon in the other direction, alone and apart from everyone else, watching the sunrise on its own.

I looked between them both and made my choice. "C'mon guys," I whispered to my pokémon. "Let's see if we can't make a break through with this charmeleon before we head back to town."

* * *

When we finally arrived back in the town, Adryan made sure to lead me off the beaten track and towards what seemed like an ancient stone temple built a few kilometres away from the main town. Apparently it was Sandstream's pokémon gym – something which was hard to believe, even inside. The large, imposing stone chambers were filled with empty space and ancient carvings over the walls, making me think it was yet another temple.

Though it was the gym, I found out, as I managed to book myself a battle the very next day. The receptionist there –who, like everyone else in the town was dressed in simple cloth – told me that the gym was built into the remains of an ancient temple – they'd found it belonged to the Cult of Groudon, though had been long abandoned and robbed of all its treasures. The town wanted to keep it but also have enough financial income to support it and thus it was decided that it would house the gym.

The whole time I was pointedly ignoring Adryan. I knew his gardevoir wanted me nowhere near him, though chalked that down only to their over-protective nature. As much as it irked me to admit it, I could see why people would want one; they were fiercely protective of their trainers.

However, the thought of owning one chilled me to my core.

The reason why I was ignoring Adryan was simply the reason that he continually insisted on talking about what we were supposed to do to stop the world from reaching breaking point. I didn't want to think about it, to be honest and though I should have been thankful for the kick up the backside, I wanted nothing more than to bury my head in the sand and pretend nothing was ever going to happen.

"There's got to be something you can do," he probed further as I tried to get my pokémon to run drills. "Seriously, beating gym leaders for badges? That can't be all you've got planned... though it explains a lot about why you were so clueless towards everything when we first met; you've got no idea about anything."

"_Adryan,_" I growled, my teeth tearing over each other like sandpaper. "Stop thinking out loud. I know I don't know what I'm doing, alright? The best I'm hoping for at the moment is that by showing people I have badges; they'll understand I'm a trainer with some merit and not just some whacko nut-job off the street. Hopefully once they know that, they'll be more likely to listen to me, if I ever need to convince people."

He shrugged slightly. "Well, it's a good starting plan I guess."

I pulled a hand over my face and growled, "Well if you've got any better ideas, I'd like to hear them! I'm not even sure I _want_ to do anything now, if it means I'm going to just poof away into the air itself! It should take ten years for things to get as bad as what they were when I grew up – that means I've got ten years of living normally before everything goes to shit and I can just do away with myself!"

His face became deadly serious instantly. "Don't talk like that. I might have told you to deal with this by some sort of humour, but suicide jokes just aren't lightening the mood."

I threw him a dark look. "Who said I was joking?" I grumbled. "Either way suicide's all I got to look forward to. I either do it by the end of the year and die by some horrible twisted sort of time-continuity or drift forever in some sort of green void with little bastard celebis." I stuffed my hands in my pockets and told my pokémon to keep running laps. "That or I live for another decade, have some fun, watch my pokémon get old, have a few illicit affairs and bastard children here and there, then blow my brains out when everything turns shit."

"You couldn't do that," Adryan whispered.

My reply was cold and instant, "Couldn't I? You've seen my memories; you know full well that I can do what it takes to survive when I need to." I took a look around us and seeing no people outside the town with us, I continued. "I've killed people because they were threatening to drag me down with them. I've left others to die because if I stayed, I'd be in the ground next to them. What makes you think I'm above letting the world suffer for a decade whilst I retire to a nice house somewhere with a trophy wife and an everlasting supply of whiskey?"

"You're better than that," he told me, conviction in his voice. "Yes, I've seen that you used to behave like that. But I've also seen the way you are now. You're telling me that five months ago, you would have put your own neck on the line for pokémon? You're telling me that you're still the same cold-hearted, ruthless bastard that you were then? You've changed. You care about other people... about other pokémon and you certainly can't stand by and let innocents suffer. Otherwise a certain person would still be killing people in the Petalburg Woods."

"I've changed once," I growled defiantly. "I can do it again. All this around us-" I waved my hand in a circle, "-this isn't something I'm used to. This isn't _my_ world. This is just some foreign land I've been plonked in and told I have to save. Well if they can manage to pull me out from eighty years from now, they can find some other sucker who _wants_ to change turn into thin air when he changes everything." I stuffed my hand back in my pocket and watched my pokémon with a distant stare. "Me? I just want to be able to live a life that I never got a chance to experience. I want... I want to watch my pokémon grow old with me and not have to worry about some looming countdown ticking over my head. I want to be able to sleep at night without fretting over each small detail I must have to change.

"Don't you see it?" I snarled at him. "I _don't_ want any of this shit that's been thrown on me! I want a normal, bread and butter life. And if I have to close myself off and decide that everyone else apart from me and my pokémon is cannon fodder, then I'll do it!" I looked away from the hurt expression written all over Adryan's face and stared instead at the sandy floor beneath my feet. "I don't want to die just so other people can live. I might have been able to do it before; when I was nothing but a soldier with no bonds, no ties to anything. But I've changed; I've made ties that I don't want to break. I don't want to die and have everyone carry on without me! I don't want to fade away and have everyone I know forget I ever existed!"

"You're a coward," Adryan told me, point blank. "You hide behind the fact that you care about others, using it as an excuse for you not to do anything. Most people would use it as a reason to keep fighting; to protect the ones they care about from having to experience it themselves."

"Well _sor-ry_ I'm not other people then!" I snapped at him. "I'm my own person! I'm selfish, I'm fine with that! You tell me then! Would you honestly let yourself fade out of existence, just for the chance to change something about a future you're not going to live through anyway?"

He floundered like a beached fish, unable to produce an answer.

"_There you go then!_" I shouted, unable to stop the anger I felt. "Why the fuck should I skip along to save the world when even the people _from_ it wouldn't do the same thing? I'm not a coward; I'm a _survivor._ If turning my back on my supposed destiny makes me a coward, then fine! And if I happen to meet that stupid celebi whilst I'm turning my back on what I'm mean to do, I'll stick two fingers up at it too and tell it _exactly_ what it can do with its plans!"

Despite everything, Adryan stood there and shook his head at me. "You have some serious anger issues," he whispered.

My vision blurred red. _"I have every right to be angry!"_ I screamed at him, fury filling me completely. "I don't want a part of this fucked up shit! And if you're going to stand there and tell me what to do, you can do one and complete this stupid goal yourself! I'm not dying for some screwed up time-pixie!"

I was breathing heavily, anger clouding my vision and my judgement. The only thing that cut through it all was when I heard a metallic click and Adryan telling me to calm down. It wasn't his words that caught my attention, but rather his tone. He was afraid. He was frightened of me. Of something I was doing without realising.

I looked down and saw that I was holding my gun at him, safety off and my finger on the trigger.

The sight of it made me yelp and I dropped the horrible metallic contraption instantly. It bounced off the sandy floor as I doubled over, clutching at my chest as breathing became hard; my lungs refusing to open or shut.

"I don't want this," I mumbled to myself as I collapsed under the weight of everything. My fingers dipped into burning-hot sand as I tried to feel something. Everything felt hollow inside me; anger washing away to leave an empty void I tried filling with pain. The hollow feeling faded away and I felt crushed, lost, afraid and scared of myself. Yet even the pain couldn't distract me from that.

"I _never_ wanted this," I complained. "I just wanted out of my world. I didn't want to have to change everything and sacrifice myself. That was what Alex wanted! I just got taken in his place!"

I saw Adryan inch around the gun as he crouched down before me. "Who's Alex?" he asked, his voice still a little jittery.

I blinked and wiped my nose as I looked up at him. "You don't know?" I asked, bewildered. "Surely you've seen it? Before I got here, the kid I was following? He was with the celebi, then he got shot and I got taken in his place?"

Ayd shook his head. "I didn't see any of that. There's... blank spots," he said, touching the side of his head. "It's like... like Myos couldn't manage to retrieve all the information from some parts... or even that he didn't want me to know about some things." He scrunched his face up. "Weird. Maybe I should ask him about it."

The thought of encountering the claydol after the earlier angry conversation made me jittery. Coupled with the fact that I'd just pulled a gun on Adryan, I was certain I didn't want to see _any_ of his pokémon. His gardevoir had told me I would only end up hurting him, yet I'd put that down to it being a jealous, possessive creature. It was only then that I started to realise that she may have been right.

The thought that I could endanger any of my friends was probably worse than knowing I could end up vanishing.

"I'm sorry," I said, honestly repentant. "I didn't mean to... you know."

Adryan covered up what was left of his fear with a fake laugh. "Yeah, well just don't go doing it again, alright? I probably pushed you over the edge with the comment about your anger."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Possibly. I don't know. What I do know is that I _shouldn't_ have done that, no matter how angry I got." I sighed and peeled matted hair from my face as I glanced back to my pokémon. "I better get them back on their drills. And tell them I haven't gone completely crazy. Maybe even see if I can get the charmeleon to do _something_ other than sitting off in the distance, seething at everyone."

Adryan perked up. "You haven't given it a name yet?"

"No," I said with a shake of my head. "I haven't thought of one for him yet. Right now I'm focusing more on getting him to train without ripping open his wounds again – you saw how much that nurse bitched at me when she saw they'd been opened up." I managed a small smirk. "Couldn't you have had Willow heal him instead? At least he can breathe fire and isn't prone to emotional break downs."

"Healing takes a lot out of pokémon, you know?" he told me. "Even healing small injuries on another can make a pokémon feel sick for a good hour. Getting rid of your concussion, as well as sunburn and a broken rib? That pretty much put her out for a good while. Not all gardevoir are demons, you know? You shouldn't keep judging them all by the actions of one."

I'd have taken what he said a lot more seriously if _his _gardevoir hadn't threatened to make me kill myself earlier that day.

"I suppose," I said without ever planning on doing any differently. "Anyway, I better go deal with my pokémon."

I made it three steps before Adryan shouted after me, "Hey, soldier boy!"

I stopped and spun on the spot, wondering just what he wanted. He gave me a confident grin as he stood up and promised me, "We'll find a way to do this without you vanishing."

Doubt and pessimism fuelled my thoughts. "I won't hold my breath," I told him.

"We'll do it," he swore. "Where there's a will, there's a way."

_Where there's a will, there's a way._

I hate those words.

* * *

After everything, Adryan seemed to realise not to bring up the subject of changing the future. He braved it once only to tell me to talk about it when I was ready, just before he left to buy some food for his pokémon.

My actions scared him more than he would let on.

Not that I could blame him.

There wasn't a part of me that could seem to remember ever bringing the weapon out – there was nothing but a blank spot where that was concerned. I tried not to focus on it and instead tried to think of other things.

Like how to get the charmeleon to obey me.

He still had the unruly habit of snarling at me every time I got too close, which meant that physically forcing him into doing drills was out of the question. I even tried holding his food to ransom to make him obey – instead he just went out into the desert and came back with a cooked sandshrew between his teeth. Lacey was impressed and decided that he was her new hunting buddy.

Thus, I ended up with a murderous tag team of Lacey and a charmeleon. Lacey would kill whatever she liked and the charmeleon would either cook it until they could eat it, or just burn it enough until it was just ash.

I tried to stop it, only to receive another stream of fire aimed at me. I snarled and kicked the lizard in the shin. That just ended up with me being hunted down by an angry, fire breathing pokémon until Xander knocked it sideways with a blast of water.

"See, this is why we should work together," I grunted at him. "Then I don't end up running away from a fire breathing lizard and you don't end up with your ears and nose dropping water."

He snarled at me once more and turned away, nearly taking my face off with his tail. I took it as a win, since he didn't try to just slice my face off.

The best I managed the whole day was getting Erra to try and fight a wild trapinch that came too close to us. It took nearly five minutes of me reassuring her that she could win the battle and that she was strong enough to fight before she actually decided to do anything. In one blow she managed to startle the creature and send it scurrying away in fright.

I tried telling her that the problem was her own confidence; she was strong enough to battle, yet didn't believe in herself. She preened at the compliment, though a snide snarl from the charmeleon brought her right back down to zero-ego.

"Leave her alone," I commanded of the creature. "I don't care if you have a problem with me, but you leave everyone else alone, alright?" I put myself between him and Erra, who was buzzing a slow, depressing tune behind me. "Do you want me to have you criticised at every opportunity? Because believe you me; you upset any of the others and I'll let them snuff out that silly little tail-flame of yours."

He matched my glare for a few seconds, holding it with primal ferocity. My every instinct commanded me to run, yet I ignored them all, intent on standing up to the fiery lizard. Finally he gave one little snarl and turned away once more, leaving me and Erra alone once more.

Once he was far enough away I let out a small, relieved breath. The magnemite clicked happily as she landed on my shoulder, scuttling across to sit on my head. I watched as the charmeleon stalked past Xander and Loki both; making a beeline for Lacey. They stood there, across a sand dune from us, just talking for a little while until I saw the nuzleaf nod towards me and say something before the charmeleon stalked away from her too.

"Fiery pokémon are all a bit stubborn," said Adryan from behind me, successfully making me yelp and scare Erra into giving me a slight shock, all at once.

"Don't do that," I said, breathless as I clutched my thundering heart. "Surprising me might make me attack you. Surprising my pokémon is likely to have them _kill_ you."

He flashed a confident grin. "It won't come to that. But as for your charmeleon," he said with a nod towards the creature, "don't worry about him being stubborn. All fiery pokémon are rather reluctant to change their views, as well as being a little – mind the pun – hot-headed. Where do you think the saying comes from?"

I scratched my cheek in thought. "So what do I do then? Attack him with a fire extinguisher?"

He barked a laugh. "I wouldn't do that. I did that when I was growing up once to one of mum's slugma. Pro-tip; never coat a fiery slug in flame retardant foam. It tends to make them a little angry. And fire isn't the only element they can wield."

I had to smile at thought of a young Adryan being chased around by an angry slugma.

"Anyway," he continued, "just be patient with trying to get through to him. You're earning his respect little by little; standing up to him to protect your other pokémon is a sure way to show him you actually care about him as a creature. It'll be an uphill struggle, but once you get through to him, you'll find it tough to lose his loyalty."

The thought of that alone was enough to make me wear a giddy smile.

"I'm not using him in the gym tomorrow though," I told Adryan. "He's still got those dressings; making him battle won't do him any good."

"You'll do fine enough," he reassured me. "Just get those pokémon as angry as you got earlier and you won't have any problem in the battle."

I winced at the mention of it. "Yeah... let's pretend that didn't happen. Getting _my_ pokémon angry probably isn't a good idea."

Adryan took one look at the magnemite on my head and winced. "Yeah, I agree with you there. They're already creepy. Don't want to add anger issues to that too."

With comments like that, it really was no wonder why Willow thought I would end up killing Adryan.

* * *

Even by the morning of my gym battle, conversation between me and Adryan was still slightly strained. It didn't help that we were sharing a room and we were both actively avoiding talking about my little anger problem.

I ended up spending most of the night sharing awkward conversations about aimless topics as I poured most of my attention into my phone. I texted Mia for most of the night and in doing so, found out that she was likely to arrive within Sandstream after my gym battle.

I told Adryan and got nothing more than a non-committal grunt out of him. He asked me a few questions about her and our conversation went – for once – with me doing most of the talking.

By the next morning, I couldn't much stand the awkward silence between us.

"So what are you ideas then?" I asked him as we walked to the gym.

He looked down to me, slightly surprised to hear me talking so freely. "Ideas about what?"

I gave him an unimpressed look. "You know what about."

"Oh, _that_," he drawled. "I'm not sure to be honest. I've thought about it a little, but to be honest with you, wouldn't it be better if more people knew? The more people thinking on it, the more-"

"I don't want anyone else knowing."

He mouth dropped open in shock and he looked at me, stumped for words for a good moment. "Why?" he finally asked. "If you had more people helping you, you could have more people helping you do this. There could even be less chance that you'd vanish. I'm sure Chris would help if we asked her, maybe even this Mia girl you've been going on about."

"I don't want anyone else knowing about this, because I'm not sure there's anyone else I trust," I confided in him. "I took a big gamble with you; I wasn't sure if you were going to run away screaming or just ditch me and pretend I never existed in the first place. I know we could use another psychic to convince people... but I'm not sure I want anymore psychics probing at my brain."

He gave a small nod. "Alright then. I can think of something else – there's no way I'm just going to sit around and do nothing now that I know all of this."

I shook my head. "I don't know why you're doing this."

"Because I'm your friend," he answered instantly. "More than that; I told you I'd make sure you don't die."

I felt touched and apprehensive all at once. "Thanks. But... can we not forget the whole thing before? It's kinda making everything a little awkward between us, isn't it?"

"Awkward?" he threw me a grin. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know damn well what I mean Adryan," I growled. "And pretending it didn't happen isn't making it any easier for me to cope with. I don't remember doing it. Don't you think that scares me just a little? I managed to pull a gun on my best friend without even thinking about it!"

"It scared me too," he admitted as he hung his head. "There's a part of me even now that wants me to run away from you and live on the other end of the country. But... I can't do that. Not knowing what you've been and you are going through."

"That still doesn't excuse what I did," I mumbled.

"Maybe not, but I like to think that you'd still stick with me if I pulled some shit like that on you," he told me. "But you trust me enough to confide your big-ass secret in me – I think I can still trust you, even if you did almost kill me without thinking about it."

His logic and reasoning was flawed; I couldn't help but think that. I was convinced that there had to be some other reason behind it – I certainly wouldn't have trusted anyone that had pulled a gun on me in blind rage.

I said nothing more on it as we got inside the gym and I registered my arrival. I was awed with the fact that the entire reception room was nothing more than a large chamber that managed to hold the same eerie feel as the tower in the middle of the desert.

I barely managed to suppress a shudder as I thought back to the incident. Thankfully Adryan seemed to miss it as he continued to talk about aimless nothings; something to do with his own gym battle in Sandstream.

A trainer came along quickly enough afterwards to lead me towards the battlefield. It was a strange situation to be in again; having Adryan watching me in a gym battle. It had started my gym career, but I had become used to battling without a personal audience.

I tried to put the thought out of my mind as I saw him sit in the stands to the side. I saw that unlike the town outside, the gym's battlefield was a soft dirt floor, dark brown in colour and filling the room with the smell of freshly turned earth.

Waiting in the middle of the battlefield was the gym leader - a strange man clad in a dark red cloth robe and hat that covered up almost all of his body. There were black lined patterns across the cloth, as well as two large eyes of sorts on the hat – the robe even seemed to spread out into a tail behind him.

He eagle-spread his arms and smiled at me. "Welcome outsider, to the Temple of The Groudon."

I blinked, wondering just how serious he was before I decided to ask my questions and receive an answer.

"You're not really a Groudon Cultist, are you?" I inched closer to him and saw that the markings across his clothes continued in paint across his face. "The thing's a myth, isn't it?"

The man smiled. "Au contraire. The Groudon appeared precisely four years, three months and two weeks ago. He battled the might of The Kyogre and was locked in a stalemate until The Rayquaza itself appeared to calm them."

I waited for the punch line. A whole minute passed before I realised that in fact, it wasn't a joke. "You're serious, aren't you?" I whispered.

He smiled. "Believe not in the worship of The Groudon, if you care not to. But know that He did appear and He does exist. One day He shall raise the land above the sea and leave all those who are unworthy behind."

I just smiled and nodded. Obviously the Hoenn government would employ anyone as a gym leader, regardless of their religious beliefs, gender, or whatever. I found it strange that a temple could exist to worship a pokémon near a town which seemed perfectly normal by any other standards. Not once had they ever mentioned a Groudon within Sandstream and so I decided that either they worshipped the pokémon in secret, or didn't believe and so left the temple out of their city's bounds. Or maybe they even pretended to worship it, just to bring in tourists, worshipers and money.

It wasn't my business to pry. Regardless, it was nice to meet a religious priest figure who didn't seem to shove their religion down my throat, contrary to the popular opinion. Every time I'd switched on the television I'd seen reports about people fighting over their religions; whether or not a pokémon or human god was to be revered for creating everything. I figured if they took a stance like the Gym Leader, they'd have fewer followers but a lot less controversy and public fights.

The leader placed a hand before his face, three fingers curled around his thumb and his little finger outstretched as he bowed. "Groudon's blessings upon you, challenger. I am Brother Benarn, leader of the Sandstream Town's pokémon gym and Revered Chanter of the Order of Groudon."

My introduction was far less fancy. I daren't try to make up a title, for fear of offending the poor man and simply told him my name.

He seemed to appreciate that. He laughed. "You would not believe how often people try to add false titles to their names," he told me. "People should not claim to be something they are not. We are all the way we are made; we should not attempt to be much else. We are like the earth itself; composed of many elements, our layers changing with time and our purpose decided only by those with power greater than our own."

We have no free will, only a course that's already set out for us. It was the basis of what he said; something which I felt myself disagree with. I had to hope that there was some semblance of free will in the world – that I could manage to escape the stupid task the celebi has set me. The Brother's alternative was that no matter what happened, I wouldn't be able to escape.

"Make way to your podium, challenger," the leader bid me. "I shall take my place upon my own and begin our battle when you are ready."

I nodded and quickly left his presence; aiming for my podium. It was nothing against the man – he seemed perfectly nice enough – but I just didn't like the fact he thought everything was predestined. To me, it seemed a depressing outlook on life and a way to escape blame for everything.

Once up on his podium and after they had risen and locked in place, the leader folded his hands on each other, hiding them within his robe. "Challenger!" he boomed across the battlefield. "You challenge me today for Sandstream Town's Terra Badge! I am to use three pokémon, you may use up to all six pokémon on your person! We battle under the guidelines illustrated by the Pokémon League Authority! Best of luck to you challenger and may The Groudon guide your hand in battle!"

He flicked a hand out of his robe and with it, tossed a poké ball onto the battlefield below. It snapped open and poured out the form of a metre-and-a-bit high porcupine-like creature covered in tiny grey scales. The quills on its back were dark and brown, clustered close enough to look like large armoured plates. It had large claws on its forepaws – almost the size of the paws themselves – and smaller claws protruding from its hind-paws.

It reared back and hissed a strange sound, ears placed flat against its skull as it snorted through the dripping snout on its face.

I made a quick choice to let Erra face the sandslash first. What caught my surprise was that before Erra had even attempted to avoid the pokémon, the sandslash actually placed a clawed paw in front of its face and bowed, just like the leader had.

The pokémon actually had been trained to pray. It was a strange, curious sight that both enthralled me with its obedience as well as stunning me beyond compare. The thought of making a pokémon bow made all sorts of questions pop up in my brain along the lines of pokémon and whether or not they were actually religious. It could have been that it had been trained to show such respect, or it could have actually believed the religion itself.

I pushed the thoughts as far aside as I could as I went through the same-old routine with Erra of trying to convince her she was, in fact, strong enough to fight.

"C'mon," I said as I tried to pry her from my shoulder. I'd already been warned that if she continued this behaviour, she would be disqualified. I didn't want to risk losing a pokémon before the battle had even begun. "Think about it Erra; you can _fly_. This thing's locked to the ground. You've beaten sandslash in the desert – this is no different."

She buzzed once, weakly, protesting. "I believe in you," I told her, regardless of how big a lie it was at the time. "I wouldn't have stood up to the charmeleon if I didn't?" I pointed out with a grin. She seemed to be half-convinced by the fact and decided to approach the battlefield again, flying in with steady caution.

Perhaps she would have been a better battler sooner if I did actually have some faith in her abilities.

"You can do this Erra," I said as she flitted around the battlefield, forever keeping a healthy distance between her and the sandslash. "Now screech at it!" I barked as I stuck my fingers in my ears.

I saw the gym leader's mouth move but heard nothing under the horrible sound that came from Erra's wings. The sandslash curled up into a ball and remained perfectly stationary, its ears tucked underneath a portion of its scaly body. I pulled a face and told Erra to stop screeching before I took my fingers from my ears.

The sandlash suddenly uncurled itself and took a running leap at Erra, jumping far higher than I would have thought possible for such a creature. The magnemite buzzed a sharp tune in panic and shot the sandslash with a blast of electricity, to no avail as it raked its razor sharp claws across her flank, just below her wings.

She dropped to the floor in a sideways spiral, wings too beaten on one side to move. I cursed and had her make the screeching sound again. The sandslash wailed as it touched down on the floor, paws clamping over its ears before it curled into a ball again. Erra buzzed and zapped it again, with no effect again.

"It's grounded!" I told her. "Electricity's not going to do much. Wait for your chance and blind it instead!"

Benarn smiled across from me. "Dig into the earth itself!"

The sandslash hissed and dove at the soft floor with its claws, easily tearing it apart and creating a deep hole large enough to fit it inside. I cursed and told Erra to try and take flight again. Her wings beat against each other pitifully as a small trickle of blood painted her side.

She remained on the ground, unable to fly. The sandslash burst out of the ground and only in fright did she manage to stun it with a bright flash of light. I felt spots dance in my own vision as I heard the sandslash's wails and told Erra to climb atop the pokémon.

The leader barked for his pokémon to curl into a ball once more. There was a small sound like wings beating from a far distance, barely audible over the sandslash's whimpers. I barked at Erra to screech once more and when that failed, I told her to bite onto the softest part of the sandslash she could find.

Instantly the creature uncurled itself as it leapt into the air, screeching wildly and with somewhat of a lisp. Hanging from the end of its tongue was Erra, who in her fright and attempts to hold on was continually shocking the creature.

Sandslash were grounded pokémon, but I knew that like any other creature, their insides were as wet as any other's – their nervous systems controlled by electrical impulses. After enough shocks its body seemed unable to process anything further and it collapsed to the floor, twitching erratically as its body fought to maintain normal functions.

"You can let go of it now," I told Erra. She did so immediately and scurried away from the pokémon, clicking happily as it vanished in a beam of red light. I praised her before I recalled her too; knowing she wouldn't be able to suffer another battle with the injuries she had. I tossed out Lacey's poké ball and watched her stand in the middle of the battlefield with a smug expression, her arms folded across her chest.

They dropped to her sides when her opponent appeared before her – a large pig-like creature, covered in shaggy brown fur with only a pink snout and two large tusks protruding. I saw the way it's breath clouded whenever it exhaled and assumed it had to be a cold pokémon.

Lacey's expression sold my theory. My brain was dead at the thought of the creature; I had no idea what it was or what could be done against it. Yet again I found myself battling blindly. The last time it had happened was against Veronqiue's lairon, which hadn't exactly ended too well.

"Keep your distance!" I commanded my nuzleaf. "Think you can set a trap?"

She flicked the leaves on her wrists and shook her head instantly afterwards. I cursed. No leech seeds then. The pokémon reared back and I saw ice form over its tusks just before I shrieked at Lacey to move. She leapt out of the way as a pinpoint beam of ice froze over the ground she just occupied, burying the ground under a good few inches of cold.

Lacey snarled and vanished from view with a small breeze. Her opponent snorted wildly and blew a small misty breath around itself, attempting to shroud itself from view. The action made me smirk; I could still see the pokémon perfectly and I was certain the gym leader didn't know that.

I saw Lacey appear behind the creature and slice its back, spilling blood and fur in one. The pokémon whined and kicked out with its hind legs, catching Lacey in the stomach and knocking her back a step.

I thought briefly that we would have to work on her attack; every time she had tried that attack she had been kicked by the pokémon she was slicing. Winded, she dropped to the floor as her opponent spun on its heel and attempted to charge her. The icy creature blew a freezing beam in front of it as it charged, creating small ice structures that it shattered as it ran into them, sending shards of razor-sharp ice flying everywhere.

Lacey hissed as they cut into her and only just managed to avoid becoming a frozen sculpture herself. She jumped to the side and grabbed a hold of one of the pokémon's tusks. Instead of stopping it though, she was pulled along with the creature and howled as she was taken for an impromptu ride.

Her unwilling carrier roared and bucked to try and shake her grip. Instead Lacey grabbed a handful of the pokémon's fur and used it as a handhold to try and mount the creature. It roared once more and threw small icy beams in every direction as Lacey pulled at fur and sliced indiscriminately over its body. Once atop the creature, she leant forwards and grabbed both its tusks, pulling upwards with as much strength as she could muster.

The pokémon screamed and blew ice over its tusks, coating Lacey's hands in a harsh covering of frost. The nuzleaf shrieked but held her ground, guiding her steed as best she could.

She barked a laugh as the creature beneath her whined and dropped to the floor, refusing to move anymore. Instead she let go of its tusks and jabbed it in the side with her fingers, pouring poison into its open wounds. Her steed roared again and successfully bucked her off, dropping her on the floor ungracefully as it reared up and smashed the ground, knocking her to the floor again as she tried to stand.

Again the pokémon breathed out a foggy mist, attempting to shroud itself once more. I smirked at the way it sagged beneath its supposed cover and knew it was reaching its limit.

"Slice it once more!" I commanded Lacey. "Aim left!"

She nodded and leapt into the mist, slicing in wide, precise arcs. Deadly sharp leaves raked across the pokémon's face, raining blood down upon Lacey. She laughed as the liquid splashed on her and brutally kicked the grounded pokémon in the face, spilling more blood and a few teeth.

She seemed almost disappointed when her opponent vanished from the field, leaving her alone and showered in blood. It quickly faded though, once she looked up to the leader and tauntingly began to lick the blood from her leaves.

"Stop that!" I barked at her, angry and mortified at her behaviour. "Keep showing off and I'll make sure you don't battle!"

She sent me a sharp glare though dropped her arm instantly, throwing one more look at the gym leader before she walked back to the middle of the arena.

I heard Benarn whisper something about her being unable to partake in The Groudon's glory before he unleashed his final pokémon in the field. It was – to both mine and Lacey's surprise – a swampert. Covered in slimy blue skin and with large black fins, it seemed to be something that belonged more in the deep sea - save for its arms which seemed to be as thick as a young tree's trunk. The swampert roared and struck the ground with enough force to make my podium shake, as well as knocking Lacey completely off her feet.

"Keep your distance!" I told her, even if it was deathly obvious. The creature's arms were strong enough to shatter rocks with small attacks – Lacey's comparatively squishy body wouldn't be much more than paste after taking even one punch.

The pokémon bellowed and shot a pulse of water straight at Lacey. Her eyes widened just as she leapt to the side, the water digging a trench through the floor. She hissed at the pokémon as it roared again, bringing its heavy fists down upon the ground. The nuzleaf smirked as she managed to keep her balance, just before the floor beneath her collapsed.

She shrieked as she fell a few feet into the ground, landing painfully and becoming effectively trapped and at the creature's mercy. I cursed at the perfect forward planning of it all; the sandslash had made the floor weaker by digging tunnels through it, all it needed was a few heavy blows to make the floor crumble and shatter.

The swampert bellowed once more as it begun to fill up the trench with water; soaking the nuzleaf inside and threatening to drown her within. She gasped for breath as she continually bobbed under the water's surface before I recalled her into the safety of her ball, glaring daggers at the swampert all the while.

I called out Xander instead, confident in the fact that at least he could swim if he got trapped in the muddy pool.

The swampert took one look at its new opponent and unleashed a furious blast of water that tore up more of the floor. Xander warbled and bounced out of the way, pushing himself closer to the powerful pokémon.

I pulled a face as I tried to think of a plan. "Blast it in the face!" I yelled at him. He needed to get its attention and that was the best ticket to do so. "Then use the floor to trap it!"

He croaked a quick reply before he spat water in the swampert's face. It roared and chased after him, swinging its powerful fists after him. I knew he wouldn't be able to fight the pokémon well with it being mobile, but the swampert had effectively created a hazard in the middle of the arena – one I was keen to exploit.

Xander warbled as the swampert struck the floor close behind him and he lost his balance, sprawling over the floor. He only just managed to get his footing and leap over the large muddy pool in the field before the swampert came charging along and fell straight into it, roaring in surprise as water splashed up and rained down across the whole arena.

I laughed at the pokémon's look of confusion as the soft, wet mud sucked its legs down and trapped the pokémon within. Water continued to pour out of the hole like an overfilled bath as it struggled, effectively pushing itself further and further in the mud.

Benarn folded his arms in his robe once more and turned his head towards his pokémon. "Use the gift of earth given to us by The Groudon."

I was understandably confused, as was Xander. The swampert, however, seemed to understand completely and gave up struggling, instead deciding to grab handfuls of mud and hurl them at Xander like natural-born bombs. He shrieked as once knocked him in the face with enough force to make him roll backwards and pulled himself up in time to start bouncing away from the projectiles.

"Cloak yourself!" I commanded him.

He warbled as more projectiles soared at him and tried to find a lull in the assault. As soon as one came he breathed out a small, thick mist and continued to do so even as he bounced around, surrounding the trapped swampert with a cloak of fog.

I had to smile at the creature's shocked expression. I could imagine myself in its place; trapped within a small area, nothing but an ever prevalent fog with the occasional shadow driving you crazy.

I could see Xander perfectly in the fog, bouncing around and shooting blasts of water at the trapped swampert. Eventually Benarn seemed to guess Xander's location from where I was looking and had his swampert begin to attack with yet more mud bombs and its own water blasts.

The swampert took a deep breath and unleashed another pulse of floor-destroying water blasts. Xander croaked and leapt over it, retaliating with his own attack, hitting the creature square in an eye. The swampert roared and lashed out blinding as Xander landed, spun around on the spot and kicked soft mud into the swampert's face, blinding it further.

The swampert roared again and smashed a fist into the floor, shaking it and making Xander cry out in protest. The sound alerted the swampert to his presence and it lashed out with another mighty blow. It caught Xander in the side and there was a horrible, wet snapping sound followed by Xander letting out a loud scream that made my spine go cold with fear. He pulled himself feebly to his feet, one limb held weakly off the floor and all his weight on the other. He hissed at the swampert and shot it in the back of the head with another watery blast before he attacked the floor beneath it, soaking it further.

The swampert growled at him and tried to turn around to attack him. Instead it pressed too hard on the wet, unstable ground beneath it and sunk completely below sight, trapped in a watery pitfall beneath the ground.

I watched Xander try and limp feebly around and felt pure anger at the creature that dared to harm one of my pokémon so. "Freeze it," I told him, deathly serious. "Freeze the water and trap it."

He croaked once, trying to disagree with me. Benarn, however, didn't know this and so quickly recalled his pokémon before he bowed his head towards us both.

"My pokémon was trapped," he explained. "It would take far too long for her to work her way out of the mud, during which time you could have easily froze her in place. You win this battle challenger; Groudon has given you His blessings."

I nodded once, still mad at the swampert's actions. I knew that I could heal Xander later though and so a goofy smile grew on my face at the realisation that I'd finally managed to win another gym battle. Xander croaked once and I thanked him before I called him back into his poké ball, intent on getting him to the pokémon centre as soon as possible.

The leader met me near my podium before he bowed to me once again. "Well done challenger. Follow me and I shall grant you with the Terra Badge."

I nodded and followed him in silence until Adryan managed to catch up to us in the corridors. He grinned and slapped me on the back, smiling and chatting animatedly about my battle all the while.

"Nice scare tactics by the way," he said with a wink. "Risky business, but it can pay off sometimes. Scare the opponent into thinking that you can do something you might not be able to."

I smiled and nodded along with him. I decided that maybe it was best to let him think that I was only trying to scare the gym leader. In truth, if Xander could have frozen the swampert, I would have made sure he did. It was only because the lombre refused and I couldn't exactly do away with it in full view of everyone that I didn't do anything else.

We were led into an office just like many of the others in all the other gyms I had visited, though this one was decorated with ancient looking scrolls and texts all hanging from the wall. In the corner there was even a stone carving of The Groudon, beneath which were a number of candles held up on golden candlesticks.

Benarn smiled at me, his mouth the only thing visible on his face. Honestly, if I hadn't had Adryan there with me, I would have been incredibly more creeped-out than I was and would have no doubt ran away screaming from the man.

Instead I managed a small, little smile of my own and handed over my pokédex and trainer card. I wanted to be out of there as soon as possible, in order to heal Xander and get away from the man.

Benarn nodded once, placed my pokédex and my trainer card into the computer and pressed a few commands. "I wished to ask you, brother," he said without taking his face away from the screen. "You seem to have vast knowledge and affinity to ice. Are you by chance a descendant of a Child of Regice or Articuno?"

I blinked and stood there, struck dumb for a moment. Adryan took a look at me and smirked as he nudged me in the side and leant down to my level.

"Most of the pokémon-worshippers believe we're all descended from a mythological pokémon," he whispered in my ear. "If we're from KanJo, you'd be descended from The Articuno. Hoenn or Sinnoh; The Regice."

I lifted an eyebrow as I turned slightly to whisper back, "What if I was from another country? Or adapted to pokémon of darkness in KanJo – they have no mythological pokémon like those, right?"

He shrugged. "I don't know _everything_ you know? Just answer the man," he said in an even lower whisper. "He creeps me out."

I snorted a barely contained laugh. "Me too," I answered, conspiringly. "I think I'm from a Child of Regice," I answered the gym leader. "I'm not totally sure – I've got no family to double-check that fact, but I was born in Hoenn."

Benarn nodded. "I thought as much," he confided. "You seem to be able to see through thick icy mists and are able to understand the Regice's pokémon children like only a true Child could. Whilst battling my piloswine you seemed to understand the creature's weaknesses and injuries better than most would."

I smiled just slightly. "So what does a ground-ada... I mean, a Child of Groudon experience?" I asked, hoping I covered my slip well enough. If he was to refer to ice-adaptions as being a child of an icy mythological pokémon, I had a feeling I should refer to him as one of The Groudon.

He turned and gave me a small smile before looking back to the computer screen. "You acknowledge me with the proper respects. That is most pleasing to see in today's younger generation. We Children of Groudon are blessed with the ability to feel tremors in the ground like an ariados' web. We can feel the vibrations and evaluate them to determine what is happening, even when our sight fails us. We also do not suffer electrical shocks as much as the Undescended Children. However, The Groudon tests us by making us attached to the earth – we cannot be separated from it without becoming ill. Whether by sea travel or air, without the land beneath our feet, we become sick."

_Bad sea sickness and vertigo,_ Adryan translated for me.

"We are better workers of the land," Benarn continued to explain. "Most Children of Groudon are farmers in locations even a Child of Shaymin or Celebi cannot grow crops." The computer beeped and he withdrew my identification from it, handing them both back to me. "There are many advantages and disadvantages to being a Child of a Chosen. Each tests us in different ways in order to bring out our true character. Be true to the nature of The Regice, child, and He shall guide you to prosperity."

The thought of having a powerful pokémon like Regice was enough to make me slightly giddy. But I knew that realistically, there was little chance of such a thing ever happening. I figured that Benarn's religion only started when people first discovered they were becoming attuned to their pokémon and decided that the mythological pokémon had to be helping them.

Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't. But I didn't want to waste my time on wondering about questions of religion and science. Instead I thanked the man once more and left the gym, intent on getting my pokémon's injuries healed.

Although my mind was constantly abuzz with the question of how I could honestly become more true to my icy adaptation.

* * *

Once I had managed to get my pokémon checked into the pokémon centre, I found myself with some time to waste before Mia turned up. Adryan suggested that I let the charmeleon out for a little bit, regardless of the fact he hated humans.

I didn't want to go around holding onto a fire breathing lizard, attempting to keep it from attacking people, so instead we went back outside the town again to let him stretch his legs. His leg seemed fine enough – he could walk on it perfectly and didn't seem to limp, though I knew it would still be a good fortnight before he would be able to do much without ripping it open.

By my leg, Loki let out a small growl at the shifting sands, convinced there was something hiding within. I laughed and picked him up, holding him on my shoulder for a little while until he decided to sit with his legs on either side of my head, much like a little child.

"You really should get around to naming that charmeleon of yours," Adryan pointed out to me. He shot me a smile as he let his flygon out to fly around the sky and watched her a little while before focusing on me again. "Have you never noticed that pokémon respond better when you've got a name to call them by? Saying 'you do this' and 'you do that' isn't exactly personal, is it?"

I thought about what he meant. It was true that I seemed to get more out of Erra since I had a name to go with her – when she was just known to me as a magnemite she seemed reluctant to do anything but sit on my shoulder.

I shrugged and made Loki laugh with the movement. "I can't think of one for him though. I don't want something that's too obvious and clichéd – how many fiery pokémon are there out there called 'Blaze' or 'Flame' or something like that?"

He laughed. "Well, you've got to pick a name that you like, and one that he does too. Calling him 'Lizard' isn't going to do much towards you being able to control him."

I nodded and jogged to catch up to the charmeleon, who was sat far away from us both again, flexing its legs as if testing its bandages. Once he saw me approaching he snarled again, which made Loki dig his claws into my head and hiss back at him.

I held my hands up to silence them both, if only to give my head fewer puncture wounds. "You need a name," I told the charmeleon. "Everyone else has one and I can't leave you out, can I?" I forced myself to smile at the creature -forgetting I had a mask covering my face - even as he continued to growl at me. "So do you have one already?"

He pulled his lip back in a sneer, fire dancing between his teeth. Loki once more hissed at the lizard and I was forced to quiet them again.

"That's a 'no' then," I decided, slightly disappointed. It meant that I'd have to think of one on my own. I wanted something that matched him, though all I knew about him was that he was angry, human-hating and able to control fire. That left me with stupid ideas based on fire and anger.

"He has scars on his stomach," Adryan pointed out. "And he'll have one from the surgery. You could do something with that?"

I shook my head. I couldn't name him after a physical attribute. I knew many people did so, but it only really left me with the one name I'd thrown away for being far too unimaginative and cliché.

Adryan grinned. "I've got it," he said with a snap of his fingers. "With those marks, it's perfect for him, don't you think?"

I followed his line of sight and saw the bright, scarred flesh of the charmeleon's stomach and knew instantly what he was going to suggest. "I don't think-"

"How about Scar?" he suggested, grinning all the while.

I shook my head, giving Loki a small ride and making him laugh as I did so. "I'm not calling my charmeleon 'Scar'. It's something an eight year old would come up with! I can't take myself or him seriously if it just becomes a case of 'Scar, come here. Scar do this. Scar do that.' Do you really think I'm unimaginative enough to call a pokémon with permanent wounds 'Scar'?"

Behind me I heard the charmeleon growl appraisal.

My gut sunk as I turned round and faced the creature, mortified and slightly betrayed. "You can_not_ like that name."

The pokémon dragged a claw along the knife-scar along his stomach, tapped it once and gave me a large smile.

I felt betrayed.

"I think that settles it then!" Adryan declared with a clap of his hands.

And thus I ended up with a charmeleon named Scar.


	33. The More You Know

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The More You Know

* * *

**

_People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others_ ~ Blaise Pascal.

**-O-O-O-**

"_There is one thing that everyone shall experience in our lifetimes; that sometimes the more you know about something, the less you actually want to know."_

- Jessica Malnoir, Forbidire City Gym Leader and world-renowned author. _(February 13__th__, 3011)_

**-O-O-O-**

I often thought that my friends were legally insane.

Once Mia and Adryan met, I decided that I had to be the insane one, for befriending them all.

It all seemed to have started well enough; she met us just outside the pokémon centre and predictably threatened him. He seemed stunned until he told her he'd tie her up by her feet and dangle her upside down from a lamppost.

After that she told me she liked him more than me; the traitor that she was.

I looked out the window, watching the night sky for a while. We were in a small bar on the side of town; a remarkably modern building in the middle of such a basic location. It, like the gym, looked like an ancient temple from the outside, though it had transparent windows that maintained the outside's ancient appearance. We'd decided to go for a few social drinks and somehow it ended up a 'take the piss out of the soldier' night.

"I can't believe you named your charmeleon Scar!" Mia laughed at me, tears sparkling in her eyes as she clutched her stomach. "And here I thought you were at least _slightly_ mature."

"_I_ didn't name him," I grumbled, my ears burning bright red. "He overheard it in conversation and decided he liked it."

She laughed again. "You're being controlled by your pokémon. You _sap_. Next thing you know they're going to have you in a dress and doing ballet dancing."

Adryan burst out laughing. "I'd love to see that. Hey, I've got two psychics; think we can manage to achieve it?" he asked conspiringly as he nudged her in the side, a wide grin on his face.

"I'll fight you every step of the way," I growled, keeping a straight face. "Or I'll convince them to have you dancing alongside me."

"I'd like to see you try," he cackled. "Say Mia, do you have any psychics? We could have him bouncing on stage like a little ragdoll."

She shook her head and looked sad for almost a moment. Then just like that it was gone. "No; they've told me that I'm not allowed to have anything too dangerous anymore." She winked and wrapped her fingers around her wine glass. "They're afraid I'm likely to rain down hell on anywhere with people."

"Can I join you in that?" I asked. "We can fire Adryan out of a cannon first and make him splat against a skyscraper; that can be the first sign they're being invaded."

Mia smiled and placed her drink back on the table. "But that'd only work the once," she pointed out, her nose scrunched in confusion.

I shrugged and smirked as one. "Not if we glue his corpse back together and fire it at the next town."

"Hey!" he protested as we both started laughing. "What did I ever do to you? If anyone deserves firing out of a cannon, it's you."

"We should line him up with a few trampolines though," Mia decided, her hands making gestures to her words. "That way he can bounce off one, hit another and keep going, bouncing along all the while!"

Adryan snorted. "Or he'll just plough through them all and become a stain spread across the all."

She smiled again. "I think I can live with that."

"I'm so glad you're planning my death for me," I grumbled. "Do I at least get to know when this is going to happen?"

"Of course not," Adryan answered me. "That way you can live in fear for these next coming months."

"'Months'?" Mia repeated; one eyebrow over the other. "More like weeks. Being evil is something that needs to happen soon. You can't be evil over a period of years. Unless you're a dictator or just useless at being evil."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, let's take advice from the clinically insane woman. If we're lucky she might not even sacrifice us to her strange, freaky God of the underworld."

"Nah, you're too thin and stringy," she told me without batting an eyelid. "He prefers the sacrifices to have some meat on their bones."

"Not even worthy enough to be used as a sacrifice," Adryan taunted me, his grin getting wider and wider. "What use will you have in life now?"

"Apparently only to serve as the butt-monkey towards all your jokes," I grumbled. "Letting you two meet was a bad idea. This amount of insanity should never be allowed to exist under one roof."

"There's yet more insanity to be had," Adryan warned me, his face deadly serious. "I haven't placed my underwear on my head and started declaring love for the Overlord as I run round in circles," he said, as his face broke into a smile once more.

Mia burst out laughing. "I'd like to see that. Is this insanity a ritual thing or just for kicks?"

"Oh no," Adryan said with a shake of his head. "It's reserved only for special occasions. You see, the Overlord is a massive pervert and wants all His best looking creations to appease him on that day."

"Obviously your Overlord is blind then," I quipped. "No one would want you running around with your underwear on your head."

"It'd be a sight to see," Mia commented. "You should start charging for it. Unless it's as bad as he says."

Adryan grinned again and rolled his eyes. "He just says stuff like that because he's deathly afraid I'll reveal the truth about him."

I pulled a face and remembered in one horrific moment that Adryan had access to all my memories up until the time I'd had Myos transfer them. I shook my head wildly, mouthing my pleas for him to stop talking.

Mia's eyes sparkled in mischief. "Now that does sound interesting," she said conspiringly. "Do tell; what secrets do you have to share?"

He tapped the side of his nose. "Ah, now that would be telling. I don't have a habit of spilling people's secrets... at least until I've had enough to drink."

I buried my face in my hands. "I hate you both," I groaned. "I have no secrets to be told. _None! _No more talking out of you Adryan!" I hissed in a whisper louder than I intended. "I'll lead you out into the middle of the desert and leave you in a pit of quicksand."

"Threats just mean that there _is_ something to tell!" Mia gasped theatrically, loving every minute. I buried my face in my hands and prayed to whatever god that was listening that an onix would rear up and consume the bar whole.

Adryan grinned once more. "Ah, he's just all pissy because I've seen him naked."

My head snapped up, my mouth dropped open and it was like someone set a heat-bomb off in my face. My cheeks and ears burnt up as my stomach burnt with horrific cold at the mention of it. He'd seen my memories... it stood to reason that he would have seen me naked... he did say he was going to lord it over me but I didn't think he'd try and twist it into something like _that!_

Mia's eyes doubled in size and at any other time I would have found her expression comical. "Wait so... you and he?" she wondered, pointing between us both. "He and you? You're... I mean you're..."

"_No!"_ I yelped, ears burning hot enough to melt ice. "No, nothing like that!"

"Denial!" Adryan cackled in singsong.

"Wow," Mia whispered, believing it completely. "So... you and he..."

"No!"

"... can I watch?"

I choked on my drink at her sudden question. Even Adryan's eyes went wide and he burst out laughing at Mia's look of complete innocence afterwards.

"There's nothing _to_ watch!" I protested as I waved my arms frantically. "There's nothing like that going on! All that happened was some memory sharing with a psychic-"

She gasped and her eyes became dreamy. "That's so romantic," she gushed, blinking innocently up at us both.

"_What?"_ I yelped, words dying in my throat as I looked wildly between her and Adryan for an explanation. "There's nothing romantic about it!"

"It's in all the romantic tales you know," Mia pointed out with a wide grin. "Two star crossed lovers decide that the only way they can further their relationship is by sharing their memories with each other."

I buried my face in my hands again and glared at Adryan between my fingers. "You never said there was anything romantic about it..." I growled at him.

He gave me another grin. "You never asked. If I'm given the chance to know everything about someone, why would I want to pass up such an opportunity?"

I let my head rest on the table and didn't bother looking up at them as I grumbled, "I hate you both."

* * *

After that night I decided Adryan was never allowed to meet any of my friends again, or if he did, I had to have the filthiest dirt imaginable on him to reveal to his friends in payback.

Though I doubted I could twist something the way he could and have people believing it.

Mia giggled by my side and I groaned, attempting to shift her weight a little around my shoulders. It turned out that she had a far weaker tolerance to alcohol than I would have imagined – which also meant that she brought up the topic of Adryan and I more and more. She was convinced it was Gospel, even as I attempted to distract her with other topics of conversation.

"I had a psychic once, you know," she revealed as I tried to lead her to her room. She was a heavy drunk – something which I didn't dare ever point out to her.

"He died," she said, rolling her head to the floor. "I had an espeon – I was a lucky girl and found an eevee – that's such a funny word, don't you think? Eevee. _Eevee._ Like 'eeh' and 'vee'." She started giggling once more before she realised she was meant to be telling a story and blinked slowly. "But yeah, I raised him up into an espeon. But then... there was this thing in The Seafoam Islands – have you ever heard of them? They're really cold. Like _really_ cold. I could have cut glass with my nipples!"

I laughed awkwardly and pulled her up again. "You know what Mia; why don't you tell me this when you're sober? You'll remember what embarrassing conversations you've come up with then."

She frowned at me. "Are you – are you trying to say I'm embarrassing?" she stumbled, swaying on her feet.

I chuckled nervously and knew I had to choose my words carefully. Telling a sober woman something bad about herself was bad enough – when one was drunk, I _really_ was treading a thin line over my impending doom.

"_Very _embarrassing," I said before I could stop myself. My brain finally played catch-up and I winced before quickly trying to cover up my slip. "You're drunk Mia; when is someone _not_ embarrassing when they're drunk?"

She giggled once more. "That-that's a good point." She swayed on the spot and giggled once again as I tried to get her room key off her. After managing to rummage through her bag and pockets to find the damn keys with her giggling and making comments all the while, I succeeded in getting her door open.

I lifted her up once again and tried to guide her into her room.

"So... so you and Adryan aren't together then?" she asked, stumbling over her own feet and making me nearly trip over.

"No," I sighed more than said. "That's just Adryan being his usual, show-grabbing self."

She smiled and blinked drunkenly. "So you're _not_ with him then? I mean... I wouldn't mind if you were, because you know I'm your friend and all, which means that I wouldn't want to watch at _all_." She burst out laughing again and leant on me again. "You're definitely, totally not with him then?"

"How many times Mia?" I groaned as I set her down easily on the bed. "There's nothing going on between us. There never has been, nor will there be."

"That's... good," she decided as she fell back on the bed. She laughed and shouted at the room to stop spinning, threatening to cover it all in cement in some effort to try and reason with it. Which resulted in her swearing at the walls when I returned to give her a glass of water.

"You're insane," I told her, unable to stop myself from laughing. "You are actually insane."

She laughed and pointed in my face. "You know it! Being insane... being insane is _fun!_ Being drunk is fun! And you know what else there is about being drunk?" she asked, leaning on her side and smiling up at me. "It makes people do stupid things. I had wine, you know?" she asked, giggling to herself all the while. "Wine makes my clothes fall off."

I suddenly felt incredibly trapped and awkward. "Mia..." I started uncertainly. "You're not trying to flirt with me... are you?"

She laughed and rolled onto her back. "Am I not allowed to? You're not... you're not shagging Adryan... and even if you were, that wouldn't be _so_ bad. And I so totally wouldn't want to watch, because that would be weird, and creepy and _hot_."

I laughed softly once more and pushed the glass of water to her lips as I forced her to sit up. "Sleep this off Mia," I told her, as seriously as I could manage. "You're drunk. And you're my friend. I'm not going to sleep with you and let this all be some sort of weird drunken thing that spoils our friendship."

She put the glass back down on the table with more force than she meant to as she rolled her head towards me, grinning impishly all the while. "Are you _sure _you're not gay? Most guys would sleep with a girl when she's drunk and when she's drunk... or you're saying I'm not attractive," she said with a frown. She blinked at looked up at me, one eye open more than the other in drunken haze. "And I hope you're not saying that, or I'm going to hold your face against one of those indoos-indess-_industrical_ sand paper machines."

"_Industrial_," I corrected her with a small laugh. "And you're repeating yourself now. Go to sleep woman. I'm not doing anything because you're my friend. And I've gotten drunk and slept with friends and ruined everything before. You're just drunk. You don't really want to sleep with me."

"That's true..." she said and I ignored the subtle implications her answer had. "Your friend is funny though. Shame..." she sighed.

"Shame about what?" I asked, intrigued.

She said nothing and instead grunted as she leant back on her bed, groaning something about spinning rooms. "Thanks," she finally managed to croak. "You're a nice guy, have I told you that before? I mean, you're really nice; you helped me to be and stopped me being silly. Have I told you that you're nice before?"

"_Go to sleep Mia,"_ I told her, aware that she hadn't answered my question.

She smiled once and rolled over on the bed, groaning at the covers as she tried to pull them over herself. I laughed to myself at her antics once more before I did the gentlemanly thing and left.

After I stole all her socks in payback for Slateport.

* * *

I got back to my room a few minutes later, only to find Adryan's cranidos eating the shower curtains. Adryan himself was attempting – and failing – to win a tug of war game with the plastic from the growling creature, cursing every deity he could no doubt think of.

I leant on the doorframe, folded my arms and cleared my throat before he noticed me. He looked up, grinned and yelped as he lost his grip on the curtains and fell backwards on the floor. "Ow..." he groaned as the cranidos sped past my feet, shower curtain trailing behind it.

"That was... entertaining," I said, unable to find a better explanation.

"Yes, everyone fear my mighty manliness, right?" he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet, scrambled on the floor for the pokémon's poké ball and hastily recalled it before it could consume more plastic. "Remind me never to try and do that again."

"It _was_ funny though," I pointed out.

"I'm sure," he grumbled as he picked up the sheet and stretched it out, assessing the damage. "You're back sooner than I thought," he commented as he bundled up the curtain and threw it on the floor. "Nothing came of you and your friend then?"

I shook my head. "She's my _friend_. I can't take advantage of her like that. Why does everyone seem to think I've got such a one-track mind?"

He grinned and waved a hand in the air. "Well, speaking for myself, I've seen most of your mind. You do seem to like just having a night of fun and then just running off on your merry way."

I shrugged. "Yeah... well, I _do_ have some depth, you know?" I defended, a scowl beginning to set in on my face. "Maybe I like the thought of having Mia as a friend. Besides, I think she liked you more anyway."

He snorted once and then looked at me, visibly shocked. "You're serious, right?" he asked. Once I nodded a sheepish, silly grin appeared on his face as he laughed about it. "Can't say I blame her, but I doubt that."

"She pretty much said so," I related with a grin. "She said it was a shame about you... or something. I don't know - drunken mumblings I guess. But you two got along well enough," I pointed out. "Even though you were both sat there taking the piss out of me constantly, you seemed to hit it off." I felt an impish smile take over my face. "You don't have a girlfriend, right? Why not her?"

He laughed once more, sat down on the bed and looked up at me. "Well, among other reasons; _you_ fancy her."

I flushed bright red and stared into the bathroom. "I don't know what you're talking about," I mumbled.

He barked a sharp laugh. "You couldn't have been more obvious! All you did was stare at her with doe-eyes the whole time we were in the bar! It's why I had to start tormenting you like that; you were getting far too lovely-dovey. I was starting to feel like a third wheel."

"So _that's_ why you turned into a mega-ass," I said with a small frown. "Was there any need to make her believe we're going out? She still believes it!" I yelped as I pointedly madly in the vague direction of her room. "Do you have any idea how awkward it is to try and help your friend to bed while she's split between making drunken suggestions to you and saying she wants to watch you and one of your best friends have sex?" My face was burning with the memory of the humiliation alone. I sighed and my face dropped into an impassive facade. "Really Adyran? Did you _have _to say that?"

He bounced off the bed suddenly, wrapped his arms around me and rubbed his knuckles on my head. "Aw, so I'm your best friend am I?" he cackled in sickly-sweet tones. "I can't blame you." I knew he was grinning and shoved him away, making him fall backwards and bounce across the bed. He laughed and crossed his legs, a smirk on his face as he looked up at me. "You need to be able to take the piss out of yourself to have a sense of humour, you realise this?" he pointed out in sagely tones. "The more you can insult yourself, the less other people's insults affect you. If you can take the piss out of your sexuality too it just shows people you're comfortable with who you are.

"But I forget you're at the age of puberty and teenage hormones," he said with a devious grin. "Where it's a case of 'ooh, woman': _erection!_ 'Oh, a man': _erection!_ 'Oh look, a ham sandwich': _erection!"_ he declared, laughing to himself all the while.

I crossed my arms and shook my head at him with a small, reluctant smile. "I'm guessing this is your way of telling me you were a sexually confused teenager? One that also had a lust for food by the sounds of it too."

He rolled his eyes and smiled. "Try and throw it back on me all you like; it just shows you can't take the piss out of yourself. Besides, if I'd said anything like that in front of anyone else, you'd have turned it all around on me. You just got that annoyed because you fancy her!"

"I don't fancy her!" I denied quickly, my face flushing hot once more. "Seriously, can I not be friends with a girl without people thinking I fancy her?"

"With you? No," he pointed out, grinning all the while. "Now be honest, how many times when we were out were you sat there, imagining her naked... imagining doing things to her naked body?"

"I... well, I mean..." I stuttered, heating up the entire room with my cheeks alone.

He laughed once more. "My point exactly. You _fancy_ her!" he sang, cackling all the while. "You want to hug her! And kiss her! And marry her! You want little babies with her!"

"You're mad!" I spluttered. "Marriage? Babies? We haven't even so much as kissed!"

He lifted one brow above the other with a sagely gasp. "Ah, so you _do_ fancy her then!"

"I... you... well... I hate you," I grumbled. He laughed once more and I felt the need to change the topic to anything possible.

"Have any of your pokémon ever died?" I asked, realising it possibly wasn't the best question to randomly ask. His laugh stopped abruptly and he looked up at me, his face somewhere between shocked and confused. "I mean, when I was walking Mia back, she started talking about one of her pokémon that had. I've already lost a wurmple and a makuhita. Surely you've managed a few?"

He shrugged, his voice losing all the humorous tones. "Well yeah, I'm not a magical trainer or anything. In total I've had six of my pokémon die – only one was through old age."

I sat down on my bed, pulled my legs up and then leant against the wall. "What were they?"

"First one was a shroomish," he related as he spun round to face me. "I only had her two weeks; I hadn't even got around to naming her when an altaria came along and decided that she was its next meal. That was in about the first two months of me being a trainer?" He looked confused a moment before he nodded to himself. "Four months later I lost a torkoal; I tried training him on a beach during a storm. A big wave rode in, swept up the beach and dragged him out to see," he explained, pantomiming his tale. "Poor Flint... never stood a chance at being able to swim."

I pulled a face. "You named a fire pokémon 'Flint'?"

He shot me a dark look. "I wasn't even eleven."

"Okay," I winced. "Sorry." Definitely a case of putting my foot in my mouth.

He shrugged. "It was two years after that when another died – a noctowl. Then a flaafy almost a year later and a toxicroak two years after that. I'll explain those to you at another time," he promised me with a wave of his hand. "Worst one was actually a few months ago – Scout, my linoone. I caught him as a zigzagoon when I was just starting out on my journey ten years ago. He was an amazing creature; he was always trying to push his limits and didn't seem to let anything beat him. He was determined to be an amazing swimmer and would swim wherever he could, just trying to improve himself as much as he could.

"He died a few months ago – just after I'd got back into Hoenn," he explained. "I knew he was old, but I thought he had another few years left in him. But one night he just crawled on my lap, went to sleep and just didn't wake up." He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and looked up at the ceiling. "I had him cremated, put his ashes in his poké ball and let it drift out to sea. I reckon it's the sort of thing he'd have wanted."

"Sorry," I whispered, not knowing what else to say. What _could_ be said to console someone whose pokémon had died? 'Don't worry, there's plenty more scurrying round outside?' That would probably just get me a punch in the face.

Adryan plastered on a smile and snapped his head back towards me. "No, it's alright. We're going to outlive almost all our pokémon – there's only really a select few other than the psychics, ghosts and dragons that will be able to outlive us. But even still, watching our friends die never gets any easier."

"At least they weren't murdered," I griped, reflecting once more on the makuhita. "I liked that little fighter, you know? I know that when most pokémon attack and kill each other, it's just nature. But that shedinja was just so vindictive it might as well have been a person who killed it."

Adryan blew out a long breath, making his hair dance around his face. "I can't say what I'd do if someone killed one of mine. They're my friends, each and every one of them. And I'm pretty damn protective of my friends."

I smirked. "Really? I've never seen you protective over me? You've just lorded about the fact that you're seen my own memories of myself naked."

He chuckled. "You're telling me that if you had my memories, you wouldn't hold them over my head?"

"Point," I conceded. My face fell into a sad, contemplative frown as I began to think out loud. "I think the only way we'd avoid any of our pokémon dying though would be to own a whole team of ghosts. At least there's no chance of them dying again."

Adryan gave a scornful laugh. "Perhaps. But there's always the risk that they can just up and disappear on you. Most pokémon are bound to their poké balls, no matter what. Some ghosts can just decide they'd rather pass on than remain in service to a human, so they do exactly that and the poké ball can't stop them. At the end of the day, it's inevitable. We just need to make the most of the time we have and hope for the certain to be delayed as much as possible."

I nodded and the conversation vanished after that.

Hoorah for the truth in depressing, drink-filled conversations.

* * *

The next morning we left the desert town of Sandstream behind us. Mia had decided to remain in order to compete in the gym there and had told me she'd catch up once I got to Fallabor. She also said that she'd somehow managed to lose all her socks while she was drunk and couldn't for the life of her figure out what she'd done with them.

Score one for the soldier.

Irenui was flying around above us both, clearing most of the sandstorms in the area. It let us see further into the distance, though I still kept my mask on and Erra out, just in case. I was only letting Lacey out during drills or at night – she'd spent most of the days picking sand out of her hair whenever we stopped and trying to bury Loki a few thousand feet beneath the surface whenever he decided to throw handfuls of the stuff at her. Xander was becoming a lot more active at night, and thus less so during the day, which meant that he too stayed inside his poké ball for most of the day.

Whenever Loki was out he managed to play with Adryan's cranidos, which often ended up in sand fights, the cranidos charging Loki and the ghost darting out of the way and letting the ancient creature ram into something – be it wall, sand dune or pokémon. After they were both nearly eaten by a large hippodown for disturbing it, Adryan and I decided that only one of them were to be out at a time. Whenever they were together, they were worse than a room full of two year olds.

It meant that I spent most of the daylight hours with Erra and Scar. Which was harder dealing with than I thought – they were such polar opposites that it was hard to find a happy medium to accommodate them both and keep me sane at the same time. Scar would happily – and relentlessly – attack anything that he felt like; which often happened to be a passing trainer. Erra, on the other hand, would be reluctant to even try and fight a gnat; for fear that it might do her some horrible injury. The cuts along her side had healed up and were beginning to scar, but unlike other pokémon who wore them with pride, she seemed to use her battle scars to prove to me she couldn't battle.

It was no small amount of effort to keep myself sane. Adryan was busy trying to train his cranidos to do simple things whilst he tried to get his other pokémon to continue training. Whenever his gardevoir was around I could constantly feel its presence at the back of my mind, probing and trying to make me leave. I tried to ignore it as best I could, pretending it wasn't happening and not wanting to bother Adryan with it, if only because I thought he would believe her over me.

On the plus side though, I had discovered that Scar actually responded to his name quite readily. Whenever I said it – be it intentional or just in passing – he would perk up and glare round at me. Controlling him in battle was another story though. I could point out a few things for him to do – if I was lucky, he'd listen. Most of the time he did his own thing, which often resulted in me having to recall him into his poké ball when he tried to attack any humans.

I finally threatened to bury his poké ball far beneath the sand if he continued to try and attack other people. He responded by breaking out of his poké ball the next time I recalled him and breathed flames on the surrounding sand, hot enough to burn it and create small glass fragments.

I gave him the credit that my earlier threat would be useless after that. Adryan's only advice for me was to keep persevering with him and to keep reassuring Erra in her abilities. He told me it would work better if she knew I had complete confidence in her as she'd be able to pick it up for herself, rather than having to have me keep telling her I trusted her.

Though when she would shy away from battling even the pokémon that decided to attack us, I knew I would have a hard time actually putting full confidence in her.

"Scar, stop that!" I barked as he tried to burn a small trapinch that had come too close. The last time he had attacked a wild trapinch its mother – a fully grown flygon – had taken offense and knocked him out with one blow. It was only by the timely intervention of Irenui that myself, Adryan and all our pokémon didn't end up in little pieces on the floor.

The charmeleon turned to sneer at me, though nonetheless left the small pokémon alone. He seemed to remember me dealing with his injuries and pointing out his opponent's weak spots well enough to at least listen to some things that I said.

I shook my head as he hissed and stomped through the desert, thrashing sand around him in his wake. "So how'd your competition go?" I asked Adryan. "You said you went to Fairfrost, right? With a big competition for ice pokémon?"

He looked confused a second before his eyes lit up. "Oh, right!" he said as he tried not to trip over the cranidos running around his feet. "We did alright, I guess. Siren came sixth out of twenty competitors. I don't think that's too bad considering the town's gym leader was there, as well as Glacia."

"Who's Glacia?" I asked, intrigued.

"One of Hoenn's Elite," he told me. "She's into her icy pokémon, hence why she was competing in an ice pokémon tournament." He grinned and rolled his shoulders. "So really, I think I came fourth. No one really stood a chance of beating them – though some people did come close."

"Denial," I muttered, meeting his sharp look with a smirk. "You came sixth. Admit it. Excuses can't change the fact that you're a _loser_."

"And you're not? You act like your nuzleaf is the best and hardest pokémon to defeat in the world, yet she gets trounced pretty damn often, from what I've seen," he pointed out, his face falling. "Just because you can kill most of us where we stand doesn't mean that you're so much better than us."

I flinched and rubbed the back of my head. "I... uh, didn't mean it like that."

"I know," he told me as he threw an arm round my shoulders. "But it's just fun to mess with you!" He ruffled my hair and laughed as I shoved him away. "A little perspective goes a long way, soldier boy. Just be thankful I point it out in a teasing way; I could always just completely demolish you if you want to? It might be a bit more reminiscent of your own time, right?"

I nodded distantly, reflecting on how true his words were. I placed my hands behind my head – successfully avoiding Erra on my shoulder – and stared up at the sky. "You know everything about me," I said, thinking out loud. "But how much do I really know about you?"

He looked at me, one eyebrow above the other. "I hope this isn't you trying to get me to share _my_ memories with you. Because, that just isn't happening."

I dropped my arms to my side, genuinely surprised. "But... why not? I mean, you've got all mine. Are you afraid by what Mia said? It's not some sort of romantic cliché idea; I just don't think it's fair that you know everything about me. A few days ago I didn't even know you had a sister."

He shrugged. "That isn't going to convince me otherwise. At no point did you say it was a deal I had to payback." He tapped the side of his head. "My memories are just that; _mine_. There's thing I don't want people knowing and they're staying up there, locked away from all you nosy bastards." He winked at me before chiding his cranidos for trying to burrow into a trapinch hill. "I don't want someone having my memories, if only because I don't want someone to have that amount of power over me."

"And I do?" I growled. "I only wanted you to see the world I came from – not every damn memory and thought I ever had! Do you not think it's slightly creepy to know that you've seen _everything_ I've done, through my own eyes?"

He laughed. "'Think'? I _know_ how creepy it is. I'm the one that has to suffer seeing such things whenever I close my eyes. Do you know how weird it is to try to sleep and have your memories buzzing around in my brain? There are certain things I don't really want to see before I go to bed, thanks."

My mouth dropped open as I looked at him and my ears began to burn again. "Great," I muttered and turned my gaze away. "My best friend thinks about me naked."

It was his turn to turn bright red. "Not like that!" he spluttered, waving his hands wildly.

I grinned. "Well at least I know I can have some form of payback on you for everything you know." He spluttered again and glared at me half-heartedly before he turned away, refusing to talk about it anymore.

"So what do I actually get to know about you then?" I asked.

"Ask what you want to know," he told me, cheeks slowly returning to normal colour. "If I don't mind you knowing, I'll tell you. Otherwise, you're not going to know."

"I still think I should get to know everything about you too," I muttered, mutinously. "It's only fair."

"Life isn't fair," he retorted. "I'm not going to deny I'm a hypocrite like that; I'll happily know everything about someone, but I don't want people knowing much about me. The less people know about you, the less someone can hurt you."

His words were such a smack in the face. The whole time I'd grown up, we'd used that principal quite often. If you didn't trust someone, you let them know nothing about you. Even those you did, you didn't reveal much to. In a world where countries were at war, people weren't above _extracting_ information from people. The less they knew, the less could be taken from them. And the safer you were.

"I've had that philosophy for a few years," he told me before I could call him out on it. "Things happen, you learn from them and it changes who you are. There's so many things that can pull a trigger on our emotions... our personalities, that will change us in different ways. If one of your pokémon died naturally or against a feral one, it would change you in a much more different way than if someone murdered it. Each thing can change you a little, though there's always one thing that can change you completely, almost overnight."

His words were true, I knew. It made me wonder if something had completely managed to change him, or if only a few things had happened. It was one of the things that annoyed me most about him – he shrouded everything behind a layer of false-humour; every time you got closer to realising what he was actually like, there would be another cloud of jokes to distract you.

I realised more and more that I'd let him know everything about me without ever knowing who he was.

It was yet another thing that made me consider that perhaps my old attitude was a better one.

"Alright," I said and let silence overtake us a moment. I wanted to know more about him; I wanted to know just exactly who it was that I was placing my blind trust into. But I knew it had to be a path of eggshells, one that had to be trod on with extreme delicacy. "So what's your surname then?"

He blinked, stared and then just burst out laughing. "Seriously? I haven't even told you that yet?"

I shook my head. "I've got Adryan. That's it. You know my _full_ name and I'm still on one-name basis with you."

He snorted softly to himself. "I guess I'm that secretive that I'm even failing to realise how much I'm holding back. It's Flite by the way. My whole name's Adryan Louis Flite."

I stopped dead in my tracks. _Flite?_ I had to know. I had to make sure it wasn't what I thought it was. "How do you spell that?"

"Spell what?" he asked, confused. "Adryan?"

"Flight!" I snapped.

"Eff-elle-eye-tee-eeh," he spelled out. "Why, what's up?"

I couldn't move. _Flite_. My old Commander's name was Flite. He pushed himself as far as he could, tried to make himself save everyone and do the best that he could, all because of something an ancestor of his had done.

"Is that a common surname?" I asked.

He shrugged and looked genuinely confused. "It's not majorly common, but it's not exactly rare either. Why the twenty questions on my surname?" He gasped and laughed to himself. "Am I the big bad you've been sent back to stop? Am I going to go silly crazy and ruin the world?"

"I... don't know," I whispered. It could have been him. It could have been his sister. Hell, it could have been _anyone_ in their family! I cursed Commander Flite for his damn secrecy towards revealing exactly what happened! Why did he have to keep all that shut up and locked away! It wasn't like we were going to use it against him to hurt him!

Adryan and the Commander were so alike in that regard. It struck me like a tonne of bricks. It could have been possible. If Adryan managed to have children and pass his secretive traits down, it could have ended up with the Commander.

I had to know if it was possible.

"Do you have any kids?"

He looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "Do I have any _what?_"

"Children," I hissed. "Do you have any?"

He burst out laughing. "God _no_! I don't have any. Probably never will," he said, slightly sad. Then just like that, humour was in his voice again. "Why, is there another Flite in the future? Are they a horrible leader that controls everything?" He pulled a face. "You didn't sleep with any of my grand-nieces or something, did you? Because that's just _weird._"

"No," I said with a shake of my head. He should have known. He had my memories, he should have seen Flite in them! "Do you really not know?"

He looked confused again. "Know what?"

I didn't want to reveal too much. "From my memories."

He shook his head. "I don't see anyone in there with my surname. If I did, I would have told you. Why, have I missed something?"

I stumbled for words. "I, uh, well. Are all my memories there? Are a few... missing?"

"I've already told you that, remember?" he pointed out. "It's like either Myos couldn't get hold of them, or maybe he even didn't want to share them with me."

"Or both," I muttered before I could help myself. "Maybe he decided you're not allowed to know a few things from my future, because you're from the present, or something?"

He seemed to consider the idea. "Maybe," he whispered. "So come on, tell me!" he begged, nearly bouncing round like an excited animal. "Who's this mystery relative of mine?"

"No one," I lied quickly. "I heard the name in passing a few times but never quite caught the full story."

"Huh," he grunted, unconvinced. "Are you sure you're not conspiring with Myos, or Willow, or even Ripper to make sure I don't know much of the future?"

I held back the shudder at the mention of his psychics. Somehow, I got the feeling they didn't much like me. Ripper was a different case – even though I'd seen him a fair few times while we were out in the desert, he never once came over to talk to me. I gathered that he wasn't too fond of me either.

"No conspiracies!" I promised him.

"Alright," he relented. "So if that's all you've got to ask?"

I grinned. "So, your sister?"

"Conversation over."

* * *

It took us nearly three days to reach the end of the desert. Along the way Adryan and I had tried to breech the subject of what needed to be done to change the future, though every time we came to a dead end, I became more and more resolute in my decision to not do anything.

However, the plus side to those days was that I was getting better at controlling Scar. I still couldn't get him to obey any commands, but he had started to listen when I pointed out places to attack creatures. Any order from me for him to burn or slash something usually ended up with him doing his own thing – or more often than not, attempting to create flame-grilled soldier.

I envied Adryan for the way he commanded his pokémon with such ease. He explained to me that he went through the exact same process as I did with all of them – something I didn't believe until his attempts at training the cranidos were displayed to me.

They'd moved on from wrestling over plastic shower curtains; Adryan spent most of his time trying to avoid the creature's heavy skull. It, like Loki, was incredibly mischievous – though unlike Loki, it could charge into something head first and smash the something to smithereens. Adryan narrowly escaped receiving a broken leg; instead he ended up getting nipped every time he tried to feed the pokémon.

My attempts with Scar didn't seem so bad in comparison. At least his flame bursts were becoming less common and a lot less powerful – I had the feeling he was just doing it for kicks come then, rather than trying to injure me.

Xander's broken foreleg was healing well enough, though I kept him off it as often as I could. Lacey had spoken to Ripper at one point and ever since had become a lot more reclusive, as if she were planning something. I knew I needed to talk to her about it, but knew it couldn't be with Adryan around – or with any of his pokémon within earshot.

I found though that Erra had taken a liking to Lucy – Adryan's rapidash. I thought it was strange, seeing as the horse could spit flames, but they seemed to bond well enough.

Adryan told me it was because ponyta and rapidash were 'flight' rather than 'fight' pokémon. Apparently they were easily spooked and would bolt if anything managed to scare them. I asked Adryan how he got her over it, though he told me that I wouldn't be able to train Erra the same way and let the conversation die there.

"Your electabuzz scares me," I mentioned one day as we headed up towards Fallarbor. Far off in the distance I could see what looked like snow, yet Adryan had told me it was actually ash, raining down continually over the town.

His electabuzz kept to the trees, only poking her head out occasionally when she zapped something from her hidden location. Occasionally her blasts would miss and end up striking the surrounding environment; often raining down leaves, branches or even rocks down upon us.

"Claire?" he asked and laughed as he looked to the trees. "Yeah, I think she thinks she's a ninja or something. She keeps out the way, attacking things from shadows rather than directly. Although... she hasn't exactly learnt the art of blending in yet. One time she tried to disguise herself as a big, brown rock. It didn't work out too well."

I laughed at the thought of it. A blast of hot breath thundered down my neck and made me shudder. I only just kept myself from freaking out and attacking the rapidash behind me. She snorted as she looked forwards, whining as her hooves managed to sink into little puddles.

"Suck it up," Adryan told her. "You're a rapidash. You can breathe fire and you're complaining about getting your hooves a little wet?"

She snorted and rubbed her head against his shoulder, giving him sad eyes. It only managed to make him laugh again. "You're a _horse_, not a dog. Growlithe eyes won't work on me."

She snorted again, ears flicking out to the side. She tried to complain to me, though I just laughed and stroked her nose. It seemed to cheer her up and I got a hot, gooey rapidash tongue draped across my face as thanks.

"That's why I refuse to bow to her whims," Adryan told me, laughing as I tried in vain to wipe my face. "She thinks she's some sort of growlithe or something. Hard to believe that she's meant to come from a line of prize-winning champion rapidash, isn't it?"

I thought back to a sport he'd explained to me before; where people would race rapidash round a track, often with up to twenty of them running at a time. Apparently it was a big, fun event for most of the posh, upper class people who could probably sneeze money.

"How did you manage to get her then?" I asked. "Surely you wouldn't have had the money to just buy her?"

He snorted. "You're right there. It was about six years ago; I decided that I wanted one of the show-winning rapidash. I mean, they could run faster than most other pokémon, and it's the old story of the hero riding in on a brilliant white rapidash that always gets the love interest, isn't it?"

I laughed. "Please tell me you didn't decide to get a rapidash to impress a girl."

"Not so much," he allowed, chuckling nervously. "But I broke into the pokéthlon dome in Johto where they're all kept."

I stared. "You... _broke in_ to a stadium?"

He grinned. "I had help. But I found the stables and of course didn't realise how easily spooked rapidash are. Mostly all of them bolted, though Lucy here was too busy eating to care, weren't you?" he related as he patted her on the nose. "She was only a little ponyta at the time, so I high-tailed it out of there after I caught her and trained her on the sly until all the fuss about her went away."

"How long did that take then?" I asked, truly intrigued.

He grinned as he scratched the corner of his mouth. "Well, a few months at least. Then I used her in a battle against Johto's fire gym leader. They figured out who she was and I well-" he chuckled and flushed bright red. "Well, I kinda slept the problem away."

My jaw dropped. "You... you _slept_ with a gym leader to make her drop the charges?" I burst out laughing as he hid his face beneath his scarf, truly embarrassed. "That's a new one. I should try that," I thought out loud as I scratched my cheek. I turned and grinned at him. "Well at least you could take it as a reassurance towards your skills."

The rapidash behind us whinnied and nudged Adryan's shoulder with her head. He laughed and patted her head, scratching just behind her ears. "I agree. Let's get away from this silly conversation. It's likely to give us all a mental illness."

"Don't try and hide behind your pokémon," I taunted him. "For all I know she could be telling you that she's hungry. Or needs a bathroom break."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Because pokémon happen to request those," he said, completely deadpan. "They wander off to do their business, or they're like Lucy here and just decide to do the do where ever they need to." He smiled. "I can't tell you the amount of times I've had her just unleash a flood of piss in public. There's nothing quite as bad as having your pokémon urinating in public without a care in the world. Worse still if it happens to be over a small child."

"W-what?" I asked, disbelieving laughter erupting out of my throat.

"Don't," he groaned. He shook his head and pulled a face at Lucy as he patted her head. "I'm pretty sure there's still a lawsuit going on."

She snorted and flicked her ears at him. He smiled and patted her on the face once before letting her bolt off into the wilds. "They need to invest in pokémon diapers," he whispered in her wake.

I smiled, "But would you honestly want to change one?"

"I'll hire someone to do that for me," he quipped. He placed his hands behind his head and grinned as he looked skyward. "That or invent some sort of scientific diaper that teleports it to another dimension or something."

I glanced at him, confused. "Do you even have the intelligence to do that?"

"No," he snorted. "But miracles do happen, right?"

My face dropped. "Not in my lifetime."

"Really?" he asked and winked as I looked back up at him. "You got your miracle wish, didn't you?"

I looked at the floor, serious and depressed. "And just look how that turned out."

* * *

I woke up that night to the sound of a scream.

I jumped up and fumbled in my sleeping bag, trying to find a weapon of sorts. Everything was deathly quiet once I managed to find my gun, making me all the more nervous towards everything.

I frowned as I detached myself from my bag and tried to remember who was meant to be on watch. My phone told me it was nearly oh-three hundred, which meant it was the second shift; Lucy and Scar were meant to be up and on guard.

I couldn't see my charmeleon around me which meant he had to be on guard. Loki was asleep curled round Xander and Erra was hidden away in her poké ball. I couldn't see Lacey anywhere, though it wasn't the first time that she'd wandered off by herself in the night. Sometimes she would come back with a few small herbs, other times with a big, wide grin. I had no doubt that half the time the nuzleaf wandered off to kill something in the night – I was just thankful that she didn't seem to be making another morbid collection.

The fire crackled by my sleeping back and I pulled a face. It danced with a bright orange glow, giving the only light in the small little campsite. It was the only light to be found as well as the only source of sound. It didn't seem right somehow.

"Adryan," I hissed as I nudged him with a toe. He grunted in his sleep and tried to hug my leg, succeeding in only grabbing hold of a shoelace. "_Adryan,_" I grunted, losing all patience.

He snorted once and I noticed that none of his pokémon seemed to be there. It was as if everything had descended into a small, eerie calm with only me as the centre of it all. I'd experienced it far too much in the past and didn't want to be going through it again.

After nudging Adryan again I finally gave up and dripped some of the water from my flask over his face. He awoke with a start, flailing wildly and squinting at everything in the dark.

"Get up," I growled at him. His eyes widened at the sight of me a moment and I realised just what he was seeing; me stood over him in the dark, deadly serious and with a gun in my hands. I gave him a small sheepish grin before my face hardened again. "Something's going on," I told him.

He grunted as he placed his glasses back on his face. "What do you mean?"

"I heard a scream," I said as I checked our little camp again. "Where are your pokémon?"

"Hunting," he answered and fell back onto his small pillow. "It's probably something screaming just before Ripper or Willow killed it. Maybe even Myos. All the others are in their balls and Lucy's standing watch, right? If there was something bad, she'd have come and got us, right?"

I nodded. "True. I still don't like this though. Call it experience."

He grunted and turned over. "Then you go have a look. It'll turn out to be nothing and you'll have wasted sleep over nothing."

I frowned and jabbed him in the side with my foot. "Up. Now," I growled. "It's better to check it, just in case. There's pokémon that can get past Lucy and Scar quite easily."

He pulled a face as he stood up. "Fine, _fine_," he sighed and grabbed his coat. "I don't see why we can't just send a pokémon to check this all."

"What would you do if something attacked them while they were out?" I pointed out. "We might be putting ourselves in danger, but at last we'll know what's happening."

He shook his head and smirked at me. "You always expect the worst, don't you?"

"Better to," I grunted. "Bring your torch. Mine's still in that damned tower."

He smiled. "You still haven't bought a new one? I thought you were always prepared for whatever?"

My lips were set in a fine line. "This isn't the time to be making jokes Adryan. Be serious. We need to keep our heads about us."

His face darkened into a scowl. "Well excuse me for trying to lighten the tone. I either make a few jokes here and there or become an emotional wreck because quite frankly, you're freaking me out. Which would you prefer?"

I bit my bottom lip and blew out through my nose. "_Fine_," I grunted. "But be quiet. And give me your torch. Or find a big, sharp stick to hit something with if it comes too close."

He reached into his pack and pulled out a long combat knife that made my eyes widen in surprise. It was a brilliant blade – I could tell as much by just looking at it alone. The sight of him with it made me slightly jealous I didn't have one of my own.

"I did pay attention in Rustboro, you know?" he said, smiling at my look of shock. "With you keeping on about what weapons to use, I figured out what one would be best. Bought it just before I went into the Cluster," he explained as he turned it over in his hands. "I've only used it to poke a few pokémon that came a bit too close though."

I pulled my mouth shut and nodded. "Let's hope that's all we need to do, huh?"

He made some sort of wisecrack as we set off. I woke up Xander and told him to stand guard in the camp before we left them. I made Adryan hand me over his torch quite quickly and tried to figure out where I'd heard the scream from. It had woke me up, I knew that much, but I couldn't tell where it came from, or even _what_ it had come from.

I didn't know where to go and so followed my gut. It led us through a slightly beaten pathway of flowers and towards a grove of trees that all bore signs of slashes and small, tiny burn marks.

"Are those old?" Adryan whispered from behind me, desperate hope in his voice.

"Some are," I said as I traced my fingers along them. "Some feel new. We're headed in the right direction at least."

"And yet I can't help but feel like it's a one-way path to doom," he grunted.

I allowed myself a small smile. "Now who's being pessimistic?"

I knew that he was grinning behind me. "I guess you're just wearing off on me."

I heard something snap in the distance and waved my hand at him. "Shut up," I hissed, heart already beginning to race.

There was something there. I didn't know what, but there was definitely something ahead. I hadn't seen Lucy or Scar and started to get worried.

I hoped it was just one of them ahead, feeding on a fresh kill.

Lucy was a herbivore – that ruled her out. I prayed that it was only Scar feasting on something or me overreacting to a ledyba or something.

There was another twig snap ahead and something muttering up ahead. It sounded human enough. I didn't know whether to celebrate or run away screaming at that.

It turned out screaming was the end result.

We reached a small clearing and instantly a horrible smell attacked us. I flinched and covered my mouth with a hand as Adryan coughed behind me. Dead ahead of us was the person we could hear; dressed in dark blue jeans and a blue top, both stained with mud and a little blood. In his hands was a small knife, the blade tipped red in blood.

Beneath him was a corpse.

A large, golden pokémon corpse.

Lucy's corpse.

I sucked in a breath just as Adryan burst into life behind me.

"Lucy?" he yelped, forgoing subtlety as he raced ahead. I heard his blade clatter to the floor, forgotten as the man above her corpse leapt to his feet, brown eyes dancing with fear as I trapped him in the torch's light, gun trained on his head. Blood soaked the entire of his front and was even smeared across his face where he'd obviously used blood-soaked hands to wipe his brown hair from his face.

"Lucy?" Adryan wailed, kneeling by the pokémon's side and holding her neck, crying as he buried his face into hers. "No. No, no, no, _no!_"

I glanced at the pokémon only once. Her throat had been sliced clean open in what seemed to be three separate strokes where one alone would have been fatal. Adryan was sobbing into her head, rocking back and forth as he cried her name.

"I... I didn't do it!" the man pleaded, holding up his hands and dropping his knife. "I swear, I just found it like this!"

Instantly Adryan was on his feet. He grabbed the man by his collar and pinned him against a tree, glaring bloody murder in his face. "You really expect me to believe that?" he hissed, voice breaking and hoarse all at once. "You were standing above her body with a knife! You're covered in _her blood!"_ He pulled the man back and slammed him into the tree, dazing him before Adryan reeled back and punched him in the stomach. "_You did this!"_ he screamed, tears in his voice. "_You killed her!"_

"I-I didn't!" the man protested as Ayd pressed his arm into the man's throat. "I s-swear! I found it! I tried helping!"

Adryan slammed him into the tree once more. _"Then why are you covered in her blood? You did this and you're lying to my face!"_

"I'm not!" the man shouted again, his face revealing his fright. "I-I swear!"

"Then what happened then?" I growled. I kept glancing around us, just in case the man had friends or one of our pokémon found us but otherwise tried to keep my gaze on Adryan and the guy. I wasn't sure just what Adryan would do and honestly, I wasn't too sure about the man's guilt. The cuts on Lucy's neck just seemed too thin to be made by his knife.

"You're letting this creep talk?" Adryan snapped at me. "He should just be hanged like the pokémon-killing _scum_ he is!"

"I want to know what he has to say," I said as carefully as I could. I didn't want to have him trying to attack me too. "It's _possible_ he found-"

Adryan's head snapped round to me. "You're on his side?" he hissed, looking betrayed atop of heartbroken.

"I...I just found it," the man protested weakly. "I swear! I just found it! I tried doing what I could to stop the bleeding! That's why I'm covered in blood!"

Adryan hissed and pressed his arm further into the guy's neck. "Then why do you have a knife covered in her blood?"

The man looked at him, afraid and then dropped his gaze to the floor. "R-rapidash hair," he muttered.

Adryan looked even more livid than before. "You expect me to believe that? You '_found'_ her and did the good thing before deciding to take her hair? You killed her for it, you sick son of a bitch!" he raged as he punched the man in the gut yet again.

"What's so special about rapidash hair?" I found myself asking.

Adryan shot me a dark look. "It's used in lots of things. Violins, bow strings, even the little thing they play violins with." He turned back to the man and gave him a look of pure rage. "This sick _fuck_ killed her for a few thousand poké!"

"I-I didn't!" the man protested. "I swear! I'm telling you the truth! Please!"

"_You're lying!"_ Adryan screamed and dropped the man to the floor, only to kick him in the face. _"You killed her and you're lying to my face!"_ He stepped over him, pulled him up by the collar and pressed his face close into the man's. "I should kill you right now," he hissed, lips pulled back in a snarl. "The world doesn't need any sick twisted fucks like you."

I swallowed. "I don't think he's lying," I whispered. Adryan's head snapped up and he glared at me within enough force to intimidate anyone. "Think; how could he have managed to cut her neck without getting hurt himself?" I said quickly, feeling a lot like a deer in the headlights.

Adryan threw the man on the ground. "He surprised her." There was grim determination in his voice and a cold, calculating look in his face. He picked up the man's knife and held it up, catching it in the torch's light a moment. "He surprised her and killed her. And now he's trying to tell me he didn't and you're on his side."

The calm in his voice... it was scary. For the first time I was actually worried that he didn't just accidentally kill Owen – he seemed perfectly capable of having planned it out in that moment in time.

He pointed the knife at the man who was trembling on the ground, too afraid to move. "He killed her. It's only fair he dies in turn."

The man screamed as Adryan loomed towards him. I dropped everything in my hands and grabbed Ayd's arms, shouting at him all the while.

"Adryan, no!" I screamed at him, trying – and failing – to stop him getting near the man. "Don't kill him! You don't know for sure!"

"I know _perfectly_ well he did it," he growled, his voice low and dangerous. He kicked me in the shin from behind and threw me off him with ease, smirking darkly at the look of shock I gave him. "But I think since he's lied about this... there's a more fitting punishment to be had." He turned away and looked to the distance before he took a deep breath and screamed, _"Willow!"_

My stomach dropped at the mention of her name alone. I wanted to run away myself; I couldn't imagine how terrified the man must have been.

Everything became cold just before Willow _appeared_ next to Adryan, anger almost radiating from the pokémon.

As soon as she arrived I felt pain spike in the back of my skull. _[What have you __**done**__?]_ she hissed into my brain, stunning me into helplessness.

I tried to argue just before Adryan turned to her, his voice icy cold and angry. "Willow," he growled and got her attention easily. "This... this _twisted fuck_ killed Lucy." I saw the gardevoir's hands twitch, almost as if she were itching to kill the man. "He shouldn't be allowed to live."

"We don't know if he did it for sure!" I protested, somehow finding the courage to get to my feet. "You don't know!"

"_I know,"_ Adryan growled, calm and yet angry at the same time. He didn't even turn to face me, or even acknowledge my existence. Instead he simply nodded at his gardevoir. "Kill him," he hissed. "You know what to do."

"N-no!" the man protested as she advanced. "I didn't!"

"Don't kill him!" I told Adryan.

He flashed me a dark smile. "_I'm_ not going to kill him. _He's_ going to kill him."

I looked at him, stunned until I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Willow stretched out her hand and the man got to his feet like a puppet on a string, moving awkwardly and without purpose. Only his face seemed his own to command and he used it to beg and plead for his life.

I watched, stunned and unable to move as Adryan calmly pressed the man's knife into his own hands. The man was crying as he pleaded for his life, his hand clamping down around the knife and raising it to his own neck.

"Please," he begged as the blade drew a small line of blood.

I saw Willow give the man a horribly dark look as he screamed and pressed the knife into his own throat. Blood sprayed out everywhere, showering the ground beneath him as he screamed until he severed his own windpipe, when they became nothing more than weak, wet gurgles.

Only then did I seem able to move again. "Stop it!" I screamed at Adryan. "He's dying! We don't know if he did it!"

"_I know_," Adryan hissed again and shrugged me off as I tried to pull him away. He didn't take his eyes off the man he was forcing to commit suicide, whilst even I couldn't look. "Don't act so high and mighty with me. It's not like you've never killed anyone before."

"_Never_ like that!" I shouted. "I always made sure there was proof of their guilt! Even if they were, I never would do anything as cruel as that! He couldn't have killed a rapidash on his own without help!"

"That's a lie and you know it," Adryan said, refusing to look at me. "You've killed before, cold-heartedly. I've seen your memories. You've let people suffer before you've ended their lives. How is this any different?" He shook his head. "He killed her," he stated, resolute. The man finally stopped gurgling and slumped completely on the floor, dead as anything. Willow turned around and nodded just before she floated over to Lucy's corpse and bent down beside it, her eyes seemingly closed in prayer to her fallen comrade.

Pain stabbed the back of my mind again. _[I told you I could do so,]_ Willow told me, her voice thick with grief.

I stuttered, unable to say anything. There was a sound behind me and we all spun round, only to see Scar standing before us, his tail making everything around him glow orange, highlighting the look of shock on his face.

I was so happy to see one of my pokémon that I threw myself at him, clasping him in a hug and not caring about the fact he might try to kill me. I didn't care. I _couldn't_ care. I'd just watched Adryan force a man to kill himself because he believed he could have killed his pokémon. And he did it in such a malicious, _evil_ way that managed to rattle me to my core.

I was afraid of him. I was afraid of the man that was supposedly my best friend – disturbed and petrified that I'd placed such trust in someone I realised I never really knew at all.

Scar rumbled something deep and low and I felt his confusion through his movements. Almost awkwardly he tapped his claws against my arm and I hugged him even tighter, refusing to let go. I couldn't take the fact that Adryan had done that. I couldn't take the fact that he'd managed to do that to someone he _thought_ had killed his pokémon.

I couldn't take the fact that on some level, I knew what had really happened. I think that was what really scared me... what I really had the problem with.

Adryan was behind me with his rapidash – I could hear him crying and talking softly to Willow. I refused to look back at them – refused to let them see how deathly afraid of them I was.

"Take care of the body," I instructed Scar, stone-faced as I let go of him. "Do whatever you want to it – just make sure there's nothing left of it when you're done."

The charmelon looked conflicted between surprise and elation. I was letting him attack another human – albeit a dead one – yet it was obvious I didn't agree with it one bit. My reluctance and hatred of the deed was obvious to him, making him hesitate, as if it were all a test.

"Do it," I told him with a pat on the shoulder. "Do it, make sure there's nothing left and come find me afterwards, alright? There's something I need to do."

His claws flexed and his tail-flame burned with renewed vigour as I turned to leave him. He would enjoy his task – that much was obvious. But I knew that I wouldn't enjoy mine.

I left them behind me, somehow knowing exactly where I needed to go. It was almost like instinct led me to a little clearing full of poison ivy. The moon shone down on everything, basking everything in a brilliant silver glow.

In the middle of it all I saw a single figure; white hair shining silver in the moonlight, a single leaf on her head almost covered completely by hair and a face twisted into an eerie calm smile. It was Lacey sat in amidst all the poison ivy, almost as if she was meditating.

The nuzleaf's yellow eyes snapped open as she heard me approach, trying in vain to avoid all the poisonous plants. She smirked at my approach and stood up, unashamed of what covered her.

Blood.

"Somehow, I knew it was you," I said, devoid of emotion.

She smirked and flicked her wrists, splashing the plants with a few drops of blood. The three leaves that sprouted from each wrist were soaked in it, her white fur was stained crimson and a small burn wound covered one of her ankles.

She stepped towards me, avoiding the poison ivy with ease. She stopped in front of me, looked up and pulled her face into a self-satisfied smile, almost like she was sarcastically cheering me. Through it all, her meaning was obvious; _what are you going to do about it?_

I couldn't find words or movement to answer her unspoken question. She smirked in victory, tapped my arm even as I flinched away from the contact and walked away, leaving me alone in the empty darkness.

Her actions left me with only one thing left to decide;

Do I betray my pokémon, or my best friend?


	34. In Plain Sight

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**In Plain Sight

* * *

**

_People believe I am what they see Me as, rather than what they do not see. But I am the Great Unseen, not what I cause Myself to be in any particular moment. In a sense, I am what I am not. It is from the Am-notness that I come, and to it I always return_ ~ Neale Donald Walsch

**-O-O-O-**

"_Perception is simply seeing one thing whilst being blind to another. No one will ever be able to see everything at once because our imaginations – the very things we use to define us as human – will always blind us from something."_

- Professor Isabella Ivy, Pokémon Physiology PHD, Pokémon Biology MSc. _(June 22__nd__, 3001)_

**-O-O-O-**

I knew a good deal of things in my life.

It may have sounded arrogant, but I knew it was true. There were a number of ways I knew how to kill a pokémon, to survive on my own and even to use and maintain a number of weapons.

Yet none of that helped me deal with the situation I found myself in.

Lacey had killed one of Adryan's pokémon. At any other time that would have been cause for me to deal with her myself and make sure she couldn't hurt anyone anymore. But I knew that I had become attached to her on some way; she was my pokémon, one of my best friends and despite everything, I trusted her.

But on the other hand, Adryan was one of my best friends too. I trusted him as well... yet everything I'd seen him do to the person he thought had killed Lucy showed me that I never really thought he was.

Honestly though, nothing about the way he killed the man really bothered me too much. I'd killed Aaron with about as much sadistic glee and Adryan hadn't batted an eyelid at that. Maybe I should have realised how twisted he could be back then.

But the only reason I found a problem with it was that somehow, I always knew Lacey had managed to kill Lucy. I had no idea how she had managed it – I was pretty damn sure the rapidash was far stronger than her – but she'd done the deed. Her actions meant that I had to lie to my best friend – who had two psychics capable of reading my thoughts.

I tried catching up with Lacey that night, just after she'd left me. I ran in the distance she left for a good five minutes until I gave up. If she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. I knew that she would eventually come back to me, sooner or later and I could question her then.

I wanted answers. I wanted a reason for why she'd done such a heinous thing. I wanted... I wanted to know if I had done something that made her want to kill his pokémon. I wanted to know if she was going to do it again. I wanted to know if she would have killed him if she had the chance.

But mostly I wanted to never have to be in such a horrible position again. I knew that one of my choices was to hand her over to Adryan; to let him realise that he'd been wrong in killing that man. But the other, devious and darker part of me told me to let her be; Adryan had killed who he thought had murdered his pokémon – ignorance was bliss after all.

Unable to make up my mind, I trekked back to the camp instead, only to find Xander sat up on his own, sat loyally on guard with Loki curled around the campfire. I smiled and petted the lombre on the head before I sat down next to him and revealed just exactly what had happened. It went without saying that he wasn't too pleased.

"I can't turn Lacey in," I told Xander as I hugged my knees, my head stuck between them and my voice a tiny whisper. "Despite what she's done... I still trust her. She might not be above killing my friend's pokémon, but she won't kill any of us. I just want to know how and _why_ she did that. And how I'm going to manage to keep this away from Adryan; I can't keep a secret about one of his pokémon with two psychics floating about – one of whom has already threatened to kill me."

I heard him croak and felt him nudge my legs, threatening to tip me over. I laughed and drew my head from my knees, instead aimlessly gazing into the pokémon's slimy green face. "What do I do Xand? Pretend it never happened? Hope Lacey's had her fill?"

He shook his whole body, shaking the leaf that ran down his back and scattering water droplets all around us before he grunted and pressed a paw down on some of the droplets. He dug a small hole, turned over the wet soil and buried it before he poked the side of my head with his tongue. It took me a moment to gather what he meant and when I did, I was surprised to hear it coming from him.

"You want me to bury it?" I asked, confused. "I tried that before with the gardevoir – look how that turned out. Would that really work?"

He croaked again and moved his shoulders in a tiny attempt of a shrug. I sighed and fell back on the slightly damp ground as I stared up at the night sky. "I _could_ bury it," I theorised, a frown covering my face. "It might be able to hide it from his psychics."

Xander croaked again and I rolled over, staring at the pokémon with a raised eyebrow. "You think I could get away with that?" I asked him, amazed that was his plan in the first place. I shook my head and blew hair from my face as I rolled onto my back again. "It wouldn't work. My luck's just not that good. My best bet is to just leave Adryan for a while – let him grieve and take the time to figure out why Lacey did it. If she's decided to start killing his pokémon for kicks... well I don't know whether I should just never talk to Adryan again or just keep Lacey under lock and key."

My lombre gurgled a small sound as he waddled over and sat on my backpack. I stared at him for a moment, perplexed until I finally understood what he was doing. "You don't want me to leave Adryan yet?" I guessed, still confused. "But it's probably the only way I'll figure out what caused this and why she did it."

The pokémon nodded towards the forest and uttered a few syllables. Yet again I was left playing catch up to my pokémon's train of thought.

"He's grieving over Lucy," I said, finally gathering the gist of Xander's gestures. "I'm not sure what he's doing with the body... but I guess you're right. We can't very well leave him while he's like that. I don't want to stick around, just in case he figures out the truth... but I can't leave him alone in a time like this." I blew out a breath and punched the ground with both fists. "Why does my life have so many screwed up choices like this?" I wondered, my brain alive and refusing sleep. "I guess I can give it a day or two. I'll tell Adryan that I need some time alone to think about this saving the world gig – he'll buy that." I shook my head and sat up, rapping my knuckles against the floor as I bit my lip. Finally I managed to ask, "What do you think we should do about that? I don't want a part of it if I'm going to up and vanish... but I brought you along with the plan of saving the world in mind."

Xander croaked and moved his plaster-bound foreleg awkwardly. He made a few more gestures until finally I sighed and shook my head. "I have no clue what you're trying to say," I lamented as I stared at the floor. "I've changed too much now anyway. Before; when I thought about everything as only a soldier, I could have done this without a problem. But I've experienced too much... I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be able to go out, enjoy my life and not do everything with such a pensive, hating and uncaring attitude to the world. You guys are all my friends and I don't want to just up and vanish one day. What if you all forget me and find yourselves just wherever I disappear with no knowledge of each other? You'd have blanked out about a year of your life and end up with a murderous charmeleon and nuzleaf surrounding you."

He grunted something and I watched with a small amount of humour as his throat swelled up like a balloon before deflating again. It got a small laugh out of me before I turned my mind back to my main issue. "I can't do it Xand," I told him. "I know I might be acting selfish... but surely there's got to be a way to do something without throwing my life away, right? At the end of the day, I just don't care about the rest of the world enough. I only care about myself and you guys. It'd take a lot of guilt or money or _anything_ for me to start trying to sacrifice myself to save the world."

I jerked up as a low, threatening growl erupted from Xander's throat. I followed his gaze to find Lacey stood in front of us both, cleaned of blood yet still looking smug. Vines wrapped around both her arms and her legs were beginning to look like twisted, gnarled roots of a tree. White fur covered almost every part of her body and I realised at once how much she'd changed.

"You're evolving," I whispered, forgetting my anger towards her. I realised quickly that it was a redundant statement – she'd been evolving the whole time I'd owned her. But it struck me then how close she was to completing the process.

She growled something and I snapped her ball off my bandolier and recalled her in a flash of light, refusing to even look at her. I didn't even want her poké ball near me at the time, hating her for causing me to be so paranoid and to cause my friend such grief. I tossed the ball at my backpack and watched as Xander batted it inside as if he understood my train of thought.

I moved myself closer to the fire and listened to Loki mumble in his sleep for a little while, letting the sound of that and the crackling fire distract me from my situation. Once the sableye stretched and rolled over in his sleep I looked back at Xander. I knew I wouldn't be sleeping again that night and was about to recall him before I remembered how nocturnal he was becoming. Instead I just looked across at him, still sat on my backpack and smiled.

"You know," I said conversationally, my smile dropping off my face. "Adryan's psychics might be able to find this out from me. Or you. Or even Lacey herself. There's no way to avoid it, unless maybe if he does find out through them, I could smack Lacey in the head with a leaf stone and force her to evolve?" A small, devious grin appeared on my face at the thought. "That way I can say she was locked in her ball evolving and when she comes out as a shiftry; that's my evidence!"

Xander croaked once, slow and flatly. I understood instantly what he meant and became deadly serious after a small sigh. "Yeah, I know," I told him. "Pokémon tend to screw up when they're exposed to those stones that speed up their evolution. But it's not like I'd ever do it to you!" I pointed out.

He grumbled again and knocked that idea completely onto its backside. There would be no forcing evolution with him around, it seemed.

"I just..." I started to say, though it finished in a long, drawn out sigh as I pulled a hand over my face. "I just hate the fact that this has happened. More than that... I get the feeling like I should feel bad that I've pretty much instantly decided to back Lacey in this. Adryan's my best friend, right? Shouldn't I be trying to help him?"

Yet again my pokémon was playing psychiatrist for me. He answered all my problems with one simple explanation; my pokémon were the ones that were always with me, not anyone else. It was why I knew that I had to lie to Adryan about Lacey, why I planned on leaving as quickly and as quietly as I could and really; why I trusted them all so much more than anyone I knew.

I went to tell Xander to move from my pack so we could leave when a twig snapped behind us. Xander growled, I spun around and leapt backwards, grabbing for a weapon even as Loki woke up and was on his feet instantly, ears pressed against his skull as he hissed.

Adryan himself gave a small wave at the greeting we gave him. Loki changed quickly when Scar walked over to us, smelling of blood and burnt flesh – the sableye went from being territorial to sniffing the lizard, curious about the smell. I caught Scar's eyes and gave him a slow nod – he seemed confused at first though repeated the gesture uncertainly before he spat a small fireball at Loki.

I recalled both the lizard and the ghost before I calmed Xander and told him to carry on keeping watch. In that time Adryan had managed to sit down, light a fire and find a stick to stab at the ground with.

"I didn't wake up," he stated, toneless and dead. "My pokémon screamed as she died and I wasn't even the one who heard it and woke up." He looked up at me from the fire, tear stains still running down his face and cheeks. "What sort of trainer does that make me?"

"A heavy sleeping kind?" I said before could even think about it. Once I heard the words myself I winced and squatted opposite him. "It's not your fault; what would you having woken up two minutes beforehand have done? Lucy had been dead almost double the time it took for us to find her."

_Not really_, I couldn't help but think. It was her scream I'd heard... she'd died probably just after I'd woken up. Maybe she'd been dead five minutes before we got there, but certainly not the amount of time I said.

His face became full of scorn as he shook his head. "How would you know that?"

_I don't. I'm lying to make you feel better._

I bit the inside of my cheek as I thought for an excuse. "Because I didn't get up instantly when I heard the scream; I thought I was hearing things. I only got up because I couldn't shake the feeling like it wasn't just part of the nightmare I'd had."

His face clouded in darkness instantly. "So we could have got there earlier?" he hissed.

I managed to stop myself from sighing as I thought of a reply. "_Look_," I said, perhaps with more force than I had intended. "She's dead. I don't like it and it goes without saying that you're heartbroken over it. But you can't sit there forever wondering what could have been. It happened. Deal with it."

His glare was only rendered useless by the snot dripping unchecked from his nose. "What would you know about any of this? It's not like you've ever dealt with death _compassionately _before. We're not all _mindless_ soldier _drones_ who can keep going without pause when someone or something we care for dies."

I winced at his words and hit back without thinking about it. "Well forgive me for adjusting to a life that wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. At least I can openly accept who I am and face people knowing that. You just hide behind so many layers in the vain hope that people will like you! You killed that guy a little _too_ easily which makes me think you're not someone to take the moral high ground here about dealing with deaths. At least I feel _some _sort of remorse when I kill someone."

"I didn't kill him," Adryan growled at me. "He killed himself."

"_Bullshit,_" I spat. "We all know you killed him; you handed him the knife yourself. Point a gun at someone's head and shoot them or force them to pull the trigger themselves: either way, it's you that's murdered them." I stood up and paced back and forth between two small steps. "You think you can hide behind all this bravado and try to tell me that you weren't responsible? I _know_ what it's like to kill someone. _I_ know what happens to you afterwards. I might not say this to anyone but I _still_ go to bed on a night and see the faces of _everyone_ I've killed. That's one of the main reasons I have trouble sleeping on a night; not because of what that stupid time-pixie wants me to do!"

It was true. I never liked admitting it to anyone – not even myself. I'd force myself not to think about it because it was the only way I could carry on functioning daily. It was my defence when they first started – when I was about twelve. After a year, I became so good at distracting myself that it was an almost instinctive morning action. It was only when I sat down and thought about it did I remember how much sleep I'd miss through such thoughts.

Adryan wiped his nose with a sleeve and gave me a dark smile. "I say I didn't kill him. If there was a body all people would have been able to guess was that he'd killed himself. But _your_ charmeleon was the one that destroyed the body. So don't try and call me out on anything when _you're_ the one that's gone to such lengths to hide the body."

Both my hands clenched into fists as I stared at him, nearly shaking with rage. The way he gloated about it made me almost happy that Lacey had killed his pokémon. The moment I realised how sick the thought was I felt disgusted with myself and spun away from him.

"You're a bastard," I hissed, unable to let myself see him. "I was _worried_ for you because at the time, I wasn't thinking clearly and thought you wouldn't be able to cope with what you'd done afterwards. I got rid of the body because I thought that someone might have found out and you'd have confessed everything. I did it because I'm the sort of friend that would help you dispose of a body – no matter how twisted that might make me." I felt a small smirk crawl onto my face despite the situation and fought to keep it away. "But you know what? I got back here and realised that no one who had never killed before could have done that so maliciously. Sure, I might kill in cold blood but the first time I did so, I was throwing up all night because of it."

I turned around and glared at him. I wanted answers out of him. But at the same time, I knew that if I was in his situation, I wouldn't have revealed anything. I blew out a long sigh as I pulled a hand over my face and pinched my chin."Let's just... forget about all that." The less time we spent arguing about everything, the less likely I was to spit out the truth in a fit of anger.

I stared up at the sky and thought about everything. I couldn't run away on Adryan without him starting to suspect something – and I knew I couldn't do it without finding out answers first. I had to hang around with him more to find that out – though that meant being around his psychics and running the risk of him finding out what had really happened. He'd notice if I was acting any differently with my pokémon, which was just adding to the stress of it all.

"Two days," I said before I realised it. Once the words were out in the air though, my thoughts quickly followed it. "In two days time I'm going to go my own way for a little while. You need time to grieve without me being around. I think and act better when I've not got anyone else around. Maybe apart we can get new leads into whatever's going to happen."

I was expecting an argument. I was waiting for him to start complaining about how I was ditching him just after his pokémon had died. Instead he muttered a small, "Fine."

"It's fine?" I asked as I spun round, an eyebrow raised. "I thought you'd have more to say than that?"

He hissed a sharp sound. "My life doesn't revolve around you, believe it or not. I've just cremated my pokémon; I'm going to scatter her ashes in a few places that mean something to us. What you've suggested works out perfectly."

"Oh," I whispered and said nothing more on that. I shook my head as the conversation died completely and decided that since we both weren't going to be getting any sleep, we should carry on moving. Adryan agreed in nothing more than a grunt; he was silent in almost everything he did for a while.

The two days that we spent travelling actually went quite slowly. Adryan didn't talk much – not that I could blame him – and when he did, it was only in short, snappish sentences. I refused to let myself start another argument with him and instead tried to focus on training my pokémon. I didn't let Lacey out unless we were far away from Adryan and made her run drills by herself – I knew my other pokémon (or at least Xander) were likely to attack her for what she'd done.

I dimly realised one day that Adryan had left his blade in the small clearing where we'd found Lucy. I spent almost an hour fretting about it before I mentioned it to Adryan, who dismissed it with a small growl. Apparently Scar had diced up the man's corpse and then burnt it until it was nothing but unidentifiable ash. Adryan said he'd cremated Lucy too which meant there probably weren't going to be many traces of our presence there. The last thing I needed was to be implicated in another murder – I still hadn't heard whether or not they'd tied me to Aaron or the Dewford Champion.

All in all those two das weren't something that I wanted to repeat.

When it reached about twelve hundred hours on the day I was going to separate from him for a while, I'd finally had enough of the constant silence and occasional jabs. I was starting to get the feeling like Adryan blamed me for Lucy's death. I hadn't seen Willow, Myos or Ripper in those days so knew he couldn't have found out anything from them, yet the way he treated me made me think he had.

We stopped to have some food and a break from walking when I felt his glare on the back of my head. I tried as much as I could to ignore it, as I had before, until it became too much and I snapped, "What?"

"You." His voice was ice-cold and like a punch to the gut, all at once. "You've done nothing but tread on eggshells around me for the last two days and it's getting annoying. You think I don't notice those little looks you give me when you think I'm not looking? I'm not going to break down over the slightest little thing!"

That was a lie and we both knew it. The day after Lucy had been killed I had battled a trainer who sent out a ponyta. After the battle I found Ayd leaning against a tree, crying silently about his fallen pokémon and pretending like nothing was wrong, even as tears continued to run down his face.

"I'm not saying much because I don't know what to say," I said slowly, controlling every word. "There's only so much I can say 'I'm sorry for your loss' and ask you how you are before you start getting annoyed."

Aside from that, my head was a clusterfuck of different thoughts, all vying for attention. There was everything about Lacey, the way I had to actively try to make myself act normally, parts of me that were screaming that I should tell Adryan the truth and others that wanted to commit bloody murder on those thoughts. Then there was also everything that Adryan had said to be after he'd met Mia; the way he assumed I had to have feelings for her confused me. I mean sure, I had thought about sleeping with her – but that was something I did with almost every woman I met.

I pulled a face as I picked up a small pebble, turned it in my hand and then threw it back down on the floor with some force. "Mostly, I'm just getting pissed with the way you're turning everything into my fault. You're denying you killed that man; you're saying that it's my fault because I didn't leap out of bed and fly along to Lucy; you're saying that because Scar got rid of the evidence, it's obviously my fault and you're refusing to acknowledge anything I say about how easily you managed to do that!"

I faced him with anger burning through me. His glare was betrayed by the way his lips were set into a small confused grimace. Finally he straightened his face into one large ball of hate and growled, "I don't have to share anything with you."

That pretty much threw me over the edge. I didn't care that he was grieving for his dead pokémon. I needed to know then and there who he'd killed before and whether or not he was capable of killing me too. All the time, at the back of my mind, I couldn't help but remember what I'd heard of Owen's supposedly ambiguous death. The cause of it was starting to look clearer and clearer in my eyes.

My hands clenched into fists and shook by my sides. I managed to stop myself from punching him in anger as I jabbed a finger in his face. "You know all my secrets Adryan; it's time you stop hiding yours from me and putting me and _my_ team in danger," I told him, my tone deadly serious. "I'm fed up of this stupid shit – I don't care if you don't like sharing information with anyone, if you don't tell me everything right now I'm going to wash my hands of you and leave _you_ to sort out that stupid celebi's problems. _You're_ the one that's so convinced it can be done and I don't want any part of that – and I'm starting to not want to be in any way related to you."

His glare disappeared with a wince at my words. Finally he threw his hands up into the air, sighed and then drew his lips into a very thin line. _"Fine_," he hissed. "You remember what I said about having a noctowl, flaafy and a toxicroak that all died?" I nodded and he let out a small, scornful laugh. "Well they were all murdered. A poacher got my noctowl, some jackass trainer used his golem to beat my flaafy to death when she lost the battle and then some little _piss-stain_ of a man thought it would be funny to get his hypno to pop my toxicroak's head like a zit." His lips twisted into a dark smile again. "They all got exactly what was coming to them. _No one_ hurts my friends, family or pokémon. Why else do you think Willow was able to so easily kill all those poachers in Sinnoh that tried to shoot her? She'd done it before three times to stupid little people who thought they were better than someone else. I don't feel guilty for getting them killed because the world's better off without them."

I blinked, scarcely believing it for a moment – naively hoping that he was just being his usual self and making this all into one big joke. When the punch line didn't come I realised how serious he was and blew out a long, slow breath; that being the only thing that kept me from staggering back in alarm and horror.

He'd used Willow to kill four people and had never felt any amount of guilt for it. Even I had felt some guilt for killing that Champion in Dewford who'd laughed when his demons had tried to rape me.

It was starting to look increasingly like I'd befriended a homicidal maniac.

"So how do I know that they're the only cases?" I asked carefully, slightly afraid of the answer. "How do I know that you're not going to go crazy with power and just murder everyone that's got pokémon, just because they _might_ end up killing someone you care about?"

My question was deadly serious, yet it made him _laugh_. An actual laugh, though it was tinged with sadness and tears in his eyes from sorrow, not laughter.

"Do I look like a crazy Sinnoan to you?" He sniffed and shook his head. "Why would I start declaring war on trainers because of that? I'd end up having to kill myself too because obviously if I was killing other people, I'd be one of the very same trainers I was claiming were so wrong and needed to be killed." He folded his arms and a humourless, flat grin appeared on his face. "See the logic in that?"

I was taken aback by the clarity of his thoughts and could only manage to nod in answer. Now I wasn't scared that he might be able to go crazy and kill me; I was scared that he could go axe-crazy and murder everyone whilst still being capable of logical thought.

He ran a hand through his hair and twirled a lock in front of his eyes before he sighed and folded his arms once more. "I've only ever gotten Willow to kill people that deserved it," he told me, voice still thick with grief. "There's no chance of me suddenly deciding that I want to rule the world or anything like that." He managed to add a smile onto that, though his face still conveyed sadness.

At least it sounded like he wouldn't end up randomly deciding to kill me. If he ever found out Lacey was behind it though, I told myself it would be another story. I shook my head as I repeated his words over in my head and noticed that there was one key thing he was still refusing to tell me; the fate of Owen. Granted I hadn't outright asked, but I would have thought that in a conversation about murdering people the death of one of his best friends that another though was Adryan committing murder would be brought up, if only to clarify.

I folded my arms and stared at him. My anger had gone – it was replaced by some sort of big blank space that made me feel exhausted of everything. "So there's nothing else you want to tell me?" I asked, not wanting to really know the answer.

He frowned at me. "Look, I know that I'm not being far by not sharing my whole history with you, but that's just who I am. I can understand the whole killing thing because it seems like that freaked you out but in case you haven't noticed; I've got more important things on my mind that what I have and haven't told you."

"Look," I sighed and pulled at my hair. "I wouldn't press this otherwise, but it's starting to piss me off that you're near enough stood there lying to my face and have been for who knows how long!" I rubbed my eyelids and held out a hand to silence him as he tried to speak. "I know you've been avoiding telling me something Adryan. I know because Chris told me."

For the first time his anger and grief broke into genuine shock. "She... she told you?" he whispered, his mouth nearly hung wide open.

I shook my head. "Not exactly. She just let me know the basics and I've pretty much pieced together everything from there. I'd just rather hear it from you to let me know what I think is true and so that it doesn't feel like you're lying to me anymore." At least he was finally willing to acknowledge that he was hiding important information from me. Granted the topic of Owen's death wouldn't be an easy thing to ever be able to bring up, but surely it was the decent thing to share when you knew everything about someone else.

He continued to stare at me, open mouthed. Finally he gulped and rubbed the back of his head with a nervous sound. "So... you know?"

I nodded, silently. He cleared his throat and dropped his hands into his lap. "So... it doesn't bother you then?"

I bit the inside of my cheek, slightly annoyed that he was continuing to avoid telling me what happened to Owen. But I figured that it had to be hard for him to admit to – I had trouble telling him what had happened between me and Dewford's demons, after all.

"It did a little at first," I told him as honestly as possible. After all, I had thought for a little while that he might try to kill me too. Even during that conversation I still had my doubts. But I didn't want to reveal that to him, so I shrugged and dropped my arms to my sides. "But then I realised that it's not that big a deal – no offence – and well, if I was in your position, I probably wouldn't be shouting it from the rooftops either."

He blinked and a little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "So you're not bothered by it at all then? You're not worried that I might fancy you or something?"

...

My brain pretty much hit a brick wall when he said that.

I blinked, stunned and fell back a step. I managed to work my brain around his words and slowly asked, "Why... why would I be worried about that?"

The smile dropped from his face and a look of dread took its place. "_Please_ tell me that's what you're talking about."

I was still as confused as ever. "What are _you_ talking about?"

He looked completely horrified. "That's... that's not what Chris told you, is it?" he asked and buried his head in his hands before I could even answer. "_Ooh shit,"_ he groaned and pulled his head back up, face bright red. "I knew I'd slip up eventually."

It was amazing just how confused I was. I looked at him, raised an eyebrow and folded my arms once more. "Adryan... what are you talking about?" I asked him, genuinely lost. I thought we were meant to be talking about Owen, but then he came out with that and made me forget all about the murder claims. "Why would you fancy me anyway?"

He grunted a small laugh. "You're not seriously that dense, are you?" He looked at me and managed to smile a fraction at my unchanging expression of bewilderment. "Evidentially you are. You have no idea what we're talking about?" he asked me, one brow raised above the other.

I shook my head. "I have no idea what _you're_ talking about," I clarified. This was a question about whether or not he was a murderer. My brain hit continual mental blocks whenever I tried to address his question, continually rerouting me to the huge forest of confusion.

He slid his thumb and forefinger underneath his glasses and pressed them on his eyelids. "You're kidding," he chuckled in a sigh. "Guess it's time for the big reveal then," he said as he dropped his hand back down to his side. "I'm gay."

I stared at him a moment, speechless. His face was completely straight and not once did his mouth twitch in humour. The absurdity of it all caught up with me and I did the only thing that made sense; I laughed.

"Th-that's a good one," I wheezed as I sat down, not trusting my balance enough to stay stood up. "You're getting better at doing straight-faced jokes – I almost fell for that one."

He laughed once, nervously and awkwardly. "Yeah... great joke, huh?" His face was bright red as he sat down, attempting to bury himself within his scarf and collar.

"Wait!" I stopped laughing instantly and felt my mouth drop open. It was like someone had just blindsided me with a truck. "You're not kidding? You're actually-?"

"Yup." He nodded.

"So you-" I made a series of gestures and he turned even redder.

"Yes," he sighed and nodded again.

"With _men_?"

He chuckled and managed to meet my gaze. "Unless 'gay' holds a different meaning in your time, that's pretty much what I meant."

I frowned and pointed at him. "But you're not... I mean... you don't-"

He shook his head at me, genuine amusement managing to break onto his face. "Believe it or not; we don't all float around, call everyone _darling_ and wear fluorescent spandex."

I laughed and turned red at my own inability to comprehend it all. "But, you don't... I mean you've talked about shagging girls with me before!"

"_You've_ talked about shagging women," he corrected me. "I've never once said that I've slept with a woman." He folded his arms and grinned at me, waiting for all the pieces to connect.

I had to sit in silence and think about it for a good while. It was true, I realised – in fact it was almost blindingly obvious in hindsight. The fact that he always talked about anyone from a sexual encounter in gender-neutral terms, he never answered me when I asked about a woman I thought he'd slept with and always steered the conversation elsewhere and perhaps most obviously: the way Chris had acted and spoke around me.

Remembering Chris' actions and attitude made me groan in horrified realisation. "_Gods._ Chris thought we were together, didn't she?" I could remember the conversations I had with her so clearly then; the strange things she said to me that I didn't understand making perfect sense with what I'd discovered. All those sly looks and gestures she'd made to Adryan, all the barely-hidden comments about me befriending people for who they are, the way she even acted like it was a case of meeting the family. "That's why she was so nice with me and so sort of slyly dropping in all those hints. She thought me and you were together!" I burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all and fell backwards, all my anger gone and replaced by a large sense of idiocy and laughter.

"What Mia said; about it being a shame with you!" I declared as I sat back up, pointing wildly. "That makes sense now! She realised it after only meeting you for a few hours!" His face burned bright red as I buried my own in my hands and laughed. "Man, how stupid am I? I've known you for months now; shared a room with you, slept next to you and everything and I _still_ didn't realise it!"

Hindsight made me realise how clueless I'd been. If I'd managed to pay a little bit more attention at the time; actually listen to what he said and paid attention to how he'd reacted, I probably would have known when I first met him.

I laughed to myself until my sides hurt and even then more laughs escaped. "_How_ did you manage to hide that from me?" I asked once I was able to breathe again.

He shrugged and pulled at his scarf sheepishly. "I guess I've just got so good at lying to people about it. I've never been a really feminine guy anyway; I mean the way I see it is that I was born a guy, thus I act like one. If I was acting all girly all the time, I'd have been born a girl, right?" He grinned again and played with the dirt underneath his legs. "Just because I happen to like guys doesn't mean I should act any different to who I am. I'm me, regardless of what I happen to lust after – man, woman or even sentient plants."

I was laughing again, though I nodded in acknowledgement of his words. "Well you fooled me! Why'd you keep it hidden though?"

He shrugged again and poked at the ground with a finger. "It's not exactly something I'm going to announce to people when I meet them, is it?" He looked up, cleared his throat and plastered a scarily large, toothy smile on his face. "'Hi there, I'm Adryan! My gardevoir's killed five people and I happen to like willies.'" He snorted and dropped his gaze again. "Not exactly something people are going to hear and want to befriend me after, huh?"

"True," I conceded as I tilted my head sideways. "But couldn't you have told me afterwards?"

He made a strangled sound. "When could I really say that? There's not exactly a good time to say something like that, is there?"

I gave him the point yet again. I chewed my lip as I thought about it all until something clicked in my mind. "Wait!" I exclaimed as I nearly bounced around whilst still sat down. "Is that why you and your mum had that falling out? You said you 'told her a few home truths', right?"

He blinked, stunned into silence with his mouth agape before finally he managed to smile and grunt an amused sound. "I'm amazed you remember that. But yeah, that's pretty much the real reason why it all happened."

I blew out a breath and raked a hand threw my hair until my fingers got snagged on a few knots. "Wait..." I said uncertainly as I slowly looked back up at him. My face must have betrayed my worry as Adryan gave me a slightly fearful look. "You _don't_ fancy me, do you?"

He turned scarlet as he shook his hands in front of his face. "No, _no!"_ he yelped. He managed to laugh to himself as his cheeks turned back to normal colour and he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like it would be a bad thing to fancy you, but you're not exactly the best looking guy there is and you're straight anyway, so it would be a waste of time."

I stared at him, keeping my face straight as I felt a grin threatening to build. "So why am I not attractive then?" I asked, acting offended.

He yelped and hastily backtracked over himself. "Well, you're not _not_ attractive, but you're not amazingly attractive either and well-" he looked up as I burst out laughing and he managed to glare at me, despite his obvious embarrassment. "I hate you," he growled finally and resumed poking the ground.

I smiled and revelled in getting payback. "So wait; does this mean that my best friend, who happens to be gay, thinks about me naked at night?" I pulled a face and scratched at my cheek as he vehemently denied it all. "That's cause to be worried, right?" I asked, a grin on my face all the while.

He floundered like a fish out of water for a good minute before he finally groaned and buried his face in his hands. "I hate you," he finally growled. "Truth is, I did think about it originally, but when I figured out that you weren't interested in men at all, I quickly got over it."

I stared at him, shocked. "You _fancied_ me?"

"Only at first!" he pointed out quickly. "And not really fancied per se. Just, slightly interested..." he trailed off uncertainly and poked the ground again. "Surely you're sort of the same? Entertaining thoughts about the women you meet?"

I grinned and rubbed at my shoulder. "Well, I suppose you could say that." He had to know that anyway. He had access to all my memories, which I was realising day by day probably wasn't the best course of action I could have gone with at the time. Yet again I'd acted rash in my anger. I blew my hair out of my face as I picked up a stick and began to carve drawings in the dirt. "Hey, Ayd? I need to ask you something."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm not explaining anything sexual."

I managed to laugh at the memory of his prudish nature towards it all before. "Not that," I clarified as I shook my head. "You kept telling me before that I fancy Mia. But... I don't understand what you mean by that."

It was his turn to look completely perplexed. "What's not to understand?"

I shrugged. "Everything about it. I don't know what you mean by fancying someone. I mean, I've heard it used in speech and know what context to say it in, but I don't actually know what it _means_."

He pinched a bit of skin on his chin and pulled it, completely uncomfortable and embarrassed by the topic of conversation. "Then why are you asking me this?"

"You're the one that kept telling me I fancied her," I pointed out as I met his eyes. "And you're also the one that told me you used to fancy me. So obviously you know what it means."

He made another strangled sound and pulled at his scarf as he refused to look at me. "Well... uh... it's hard to describe. But... a lot of it is... well its wanting to do... _stuff_ to the person."

I snorted and gave him a flat look. "Adryan, I'm _seventeen_. I know perfectly well what sex is. And I imagine having sex with nearly every woman I meet – does that mean I fancy them all?"

He blew out a breath and shook his head, continually refusing to look up. "I'm not treating you like you don't know about sex... it's just awkward because well... most of what I'm having to do is explain how I felt about you... and it's weird and embarrassing."

I grinned. "It's not my fault you're a prude. Is this why you wouldn't go into details about all the prison-things? Because you'd thought about doing them to me before?"

I cackled at the horrifically embarrassed look he gave me. "No well... right, for me it's more that you don't just lust after them... you want to be with them whenever you can be. There's a little bit of you that's always planning what your future might be like, but mostly even if they don't return your feelings, you're always happy around them."

On some level I couldn't help but feel flattered by his words. It managed to build my self-confidence back up after he'd dashed it by pointing out how unattractive I supposedly was.

"I'm not sure I feel that way about her," I told him. "I mean, you pretty much took all my denials as proof of my feelings. Sure I'm always happy and laughing when I'm with her... but I'm never really thinking about anyone when I'm not with them. Most of the time it's just to do with what that stupid celebi's making me do, or something to do with my pokémon or general shit like that."

He rolled his shoulders and folded his hands in his lap. "Well it's not exactly something you know for sure. It's impossible describe your feelings to someone else; it's like trying to explain colour to the blind. Just give it time. If nothing seems to develop there, then don't worry about it." He looked up and grinned impishly. "Of course, if you happen to get feelings for me instead..."

I recoiled and nearly fell over myself. "_Ew!_ No! Ew!" I shook my head and refused to even entertain the thought. "No offence, but _ew!_"

He laughed to himself and leant back on his elbows. "It's your own fault. You found out about me. It's not like you never flirt with the girls you know, I'm just doing the same thing back." He winked. "You wanted to distract me from everything and find out what I haven't told you."

"Yeah, but..." I gargled as I inched backwards a little. "Ignoring the fact that you're a guy; you're like my _brother_! You feel like family and even if you were female I'd still feel grossed out because of that!"

It was his turn to start laughing at me. "You're like my little brother anyway, so don't worry about anything," he said as he waved a hand before his face. "Believe it or not, I'm not entertaining thoughts about us suddenly falling in love or anything like that. It isn't going to happen; I know that, so I'd rather chase after someone that I know is going to return my affections."

I nodded and then grimaced as my brain managed to process his words. "Wait, so you think of me as your brother and you still flirt with me?" I snorted and shook my head. "That's just plain _wrong!"_

His face was blank until it twisted into a smile and he barked out a laugh. "I'd never thought of it like that. No wonder why I'm so sick and twisted then." He grinned at his own words and pushed himself into a sitting position. "But you wanted me to stop lying as much, so you'll have to deal with who I really am then, which means me flirting with you and everyone else whenever I feel like it!"

I groaned and shook my head. "I liked you better when I thought you were straight."

He laughed again at my words. The sad thing is... it took a few months for me to realise I was the only one laughing that day.

The world should fear me, the Master of Perception.

* * *

It was only when I left Adryan the next day that I realised I hadn't found out anything about Owen from him. I'd been that dumbfounded by his reveal that I managed to forget everything I wanted to talk about. It had managed to distract me from everything to do with Lacey and I even managed to torment him a bit more.

It was actually something that managed to bring a smile to his face at least. He seemed to be a lot freer about himself and also a lot happier – though it did mean that he started flirting with me. That was weird to adjust to, no matter how often he tried it – though most of the weirdness stemmed from the fact he was so shameless when he was flirting, yet such a prude otherwise.

I amazed myself in that I'd ever managed to miss it in the first place.

I was about three days from Fallarbor when I realised I'd done nothing to try and find out what had caused Lacey to kill Lucy.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do such a thing though. It meant having something capable of translating her words for me, which really only left we with trying to find a psychic to do so. My luck with those creatures was less than appalling – every wild one I'd encountered had tried to kill me. I didn't want to try and get a wild one to translate for me – with my luck it would blend my brains within my skull or something.

That meant I had only one real option left; I had to go with a trainer's pokémon. I mulled over the decision for a short while and knew exactly what I had to do; find out what I needed to know, and then dispose of the trainer and the pokémon.

I couldn't ask Lacey to do it, not when I was chastising her for killing. Xander would refuse, Erra would be too afraid to do so and Loki would probably see it all as a big game.

That left me with a single choice. I let Scar out of his ball and let him embrace the sparse showers of ash that came down from the sky before I explained everything to him. He seemed more than happy to do so.

In fact, he was a bit _too_ enthusiastic.

The moment he saw another human, he hissed and leapt at the poor man, scaring him senseless.

"Scar!" I yelped as I chased after the creature and only just managed to grab hold of him. However, I only managed to grab his tail, which made him more angry at me than the other person.

"Don't. Go. Attacking. People!" I commanded him even as I tried to pull him away from the trainer. I signalled for him to run along – which he did without wasting a moment – as I tried to wrestle with my charmeleon.

"Scar!" I hissed and slapped him in the back. His head snapped round as he tried to bite me, growling viciously as I continued to try and stop him chasing the random trainer. "Stop!" I shouted at him and slapped him again. "You attack when _I_ say so, not otherwise!"

He hissed at me, mouth spewing flames before I recalled him and fell on the ground, exhausted and unwilling to go through such a thing again.

I pushed myself off the floor and continued on towards Fallarbor, playing out possible scenarios in my mind. I knew that if I was to find out what I needed, I would have to trap a trainer somewhere that people wouldn't intrude. I'd have to make sure they had a psychic on them capable of telepathy, somehow threaten them into translating everything for me, then be able to dispose of them quite easily.

It meant I would have to rely on Scar, without a doubt. I gave it half an hour before I let him out of his poké ball again and let him loose on the wild pokémon to calm him down.

There was one he caught with an errant blast of fire that seemed more curious than annoyed though. Every so often I would catch a flash of light as sunlight bounced off it; always from roughly ten paces behind us. The first two times I dismissed it as random occurrences, though come the third and fourth, I knew we were being followed.

I told Scar to stop moving and moved myself behind him as we turned to face the approaching stalker. My hand slid down, ready over my gun as I saw it approach, moving up and down almost as if it were bouncing.

Sunlight bounced off it, illuminating a great plumage of feathers that shone with silver light. A large spiked crest framed its head and its amber vulture's eyes. It had a long neck covered in feathers, two long legs that ended in three-clawed talons and a tail made of longer, almost grey in colour feathers.

It looked at us, twitched its neck to the side and spread its wings out to the sides with a screech, displaying the blood-red feathers beneath.

I knew instantly it was a skarmory; a pokémon whose feathers could grow as tough as steel. Like most birds, their feathers were built from keratin, though like most metallic pokémon, their bodies fused additional minerals into keratin, making their bodies hard as steel, yet pokémon like skarmory could still fly without hindrance.

Its bottom jaw displayed a row of teeth as it screeched at us, tucked its wings in, bounced forwards a few steps and then spread its wings with another battle cry. I didn't know whether it was trying to warn us away from its territory or just challenging us, but I wasn't going to pass the opportunity up.

I nodded and Scar leapt at it, claws out and teeth ablaze with flames. The metallic bird was blindsided as he leapt upon it, burying his teeth in its neck and his clawed feet in its torso, slashing through steel-hard feathers and beating the bird with his fiery tail.

The skarmory shrieked and spread its wings in a deadly dance, slashing left and right across Scar and knocking him to the floor. He hissed and spat a ball of fire which the bird ducked under, making it all the angrier. It kicked Scar in the shin as he stood up, swiped him in the gut with one of its wings and pecked his head, tearing scales free from flesh and splashing blood everywhere.

Scar hissed again and breathed flames in the bird's face, making it dance backwards in pain. He snatched one of its wings in his claws and spun the bird into the floor, bathing the appendage in bright orange flames. I told him to go for the stomach instead, knowing that the pokémon could be of some use to me.

Scar kicked the bird and raked his claws across its back, making it shriek again. The bird fluffed its wings out and pecked at his feet, even as it sliced his front, spilling yet more blood. The charmeleon snarled and tried to stomp on the bird as he breathed flames over it, roasting the bird alive.

I saw my chance and chucked a poké ball at the bird, surprising Scar as the skarmory burst into iridescent red light. The ball didn't even rock once before it shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing the skarmory in all its injured glory, looking somehow angrier than before.

Scar snarled at the bird and blew yet more flames into its face, making the creature shriek again. He reared back and punched the bird on the beak before he kicked it in the stomach once, twice and then a third time before it fell onto the ground, winded and still trying to beat him off.

It didn't resist the second time I threw a poké ball at it and stayed inside until the ball stopped rocking. Scar and I both watched it for a minute more before he collapsed to the floor, exhausted, and I approached the ball cautiously, expecting it to burst open at any moment.

When it didn't I felt a smile bloom across my face at my success. Scar growled and tried to snatch the newly-occupied ball from my hands before I slapped his claws away and told him off. He snarled at me until I thanked him for his help in capturing the pokémon. It seemed to throw the lizard for six before he peeled his lips back in a frightful smile. I chuckled nervously at him before I recalled him, giving him a rest and escaping that horrifying grin.

Only afterwards did I realise I'd have to let him rest before I could find a psychic. Even my successes managed to throw a spanner in the works.

* * *

I waited a day before I dared to let the skarmory out of its poké ball. Scar seemed to need some time to heal and I would need all my pokémon available to try and contain the pokémon if it decided to attack.

I flipped open my pokédex to scan the skarmory's ball and discovered that it was three years old and female. I shut the machine with a small scowl. That meant she was likely to be stronger than everyone on my team – save Lacey. It meant that to calm the bird, I'd have to have her out just in case.

I blew out a breath and let Xander out of his own poké ball. He found a small cluster of slightly-damp grass before he sat down and stared up at me, his eyes blinking independently of each other.

"I've caught a skarmory," I told him, cutting right to the chase. He made an impressed sound at that and seemed to frown instantly afterwards. I had no doubt he knew what was coming next. Regardless, I still had to tell him, just in case. "She's strong and I'm going to need you all here. That means I'm going to have to get Lacey out for help – so I'll need you to keep calm and keep the peace."

He made an unimpressed sound at that though still let me know he'd be able to keep his cool. I thanked him and released Lacey from her ball first. When she appeared Xander growled threateningly at her, though she just crossed her arms and sneered at the toad. He croaked once, sharp and aggressively. The nuzleaf scoffed once more, grunted something and then turned her gaze away from him.

I blew out a breath and thanked my lucky stars they didn't start fighting. I explained everything to Lacey before I released my other three pokémon and explained everything to them all.

Scar seemed fine enough with the idea, while Loki threw back his head and cackled as he flexed his claws. Meanwhile Erra just buzzed and scuttled across the floor in an attempt to hide behind anyone. I stepped in front of her and told her to get into a circle with everyone else, regardless of how afraid she may have been.

When she finally did and all my pokémon were in position, I released the skarmory. Bright white light poured out like steam between them all, forming the shape of the metallic bird. She twitched her head at everyone before she spread her wings again and screeched at them all. Once she tucked them back at her sides, Loki fell on the floor cackling at her, Erra hid behind Scar who stood impassively in front of the bird, Xander looked at me as if to question my sanity and Lacey just waved a hand and started to walk away.

"Hey!" I snapped after her. "Where do you think you're going?"

She stopped and snapped her neck round to glare at me. Finally she rolled her eyes, pointed at the skarmory – who was still spreading her wings and cawing every so often – then punched her fists together and shook her head.

Apparantly the bird wasn't going to attack us. I nodded and took the nuzleaf's word for it before I recalled her, Loki and Erra all to their poké balls. Scar looked unimpressed by the turn of events and roared as he chased after a small sandshrew that had come too close. Xander meanwhile just watched the skarmory impassively, unmoving even as she continued to display her wings and screech.

I sighed and shook my head, not understanding anything. Instead I stepped towards the metallic bird and found that she was just a bit taller than me.

"So... I'm your trainer now," I told her uncertainly.

Her head twitched again before she shrieked and nipped my shoulder. I flinched and backed away, though she hopped after me with her eyes sparking with curiosity. Once more she tried to nip me and I managed to slap her beak away, only to cut my hand open on her teeth. Her head twitched once more as she watched blood trickle down my hand before she spread her wings again and screeched.

I groaned and recalled her into her poké ball. I couldn't figure out what was the creature's deal – she seemed curious, yet didn't seem to want to attack randomly, like so many of her species would. I decided that I would have to deal with it once I reached the next town and possibly ring Chris if I was still stuck for options.

I placed the skarmory's poké ball on my bandolier and looked around for Scar. The lizard managed to blindside me completely, nearly knocking face-first into the ground. I heard Xander croak something like a laugh as Scar began tugging on my jacket and hissing as he tried to pull me along with him.

I snatched my jacket back off him and stared at him, perplexed. He snarled once more and turned around, stalking a few steps away before he stopped and turned his head towards me. Once more he growled and took a few steps before he stopped and watched me.

I pointed stupidly at myself. "You want me... to follow you?" I guessed, surprising myself when he growled and continued to walk away. I shrugged and figured I had nothing to lose by following him – he didn't seem the type to try and trap me to kill me, after all. That was more Lacey's department. If Scar were to try and attack me, I knew he wouldn't hesitate in doing so. I recalled Xander and chased after the fiery lizard, running more than jogging in an attempt to keep up with him.

"What have you found?" I asked between pants as I tried keeping up with him.

He hissed something unintelligible as he bounded along the fields, his body pressed low and reminding me of a predator chasing prey. I began entertaining thoughts about how he'd found a dead pokémon or human – maybe even something or someone he'd killed. After all, I'd had him dismember the man Adryan had killed and congratulated him afterwards – the chances were that he thought he was doing a good thing by killing.

Alarm bells rang in my skull as he lead me to somewhere that seemed a lot more secluded than before. My brain began connecting dots I'd not seen before – Scar hung out with Lacey a lot when they were out and it wasn't like she never killed anyone. I'd even told him that I'd need him to dispose of someone once I was through with them – maybe he'd killed someone in a misguided attempt to help me.

I felt an indescribable amount of relief when I heard shouting from somewhere in front of us. Scar came to an abrupt stop just behind a cluster of trees and nodded forwards. I leant against the tree, panting as I followed his gaze. Far across us in the ashy plains was a trainer with brown hair, a dark blue body warmer over a white shirt and brown combat trousers. Though with him was a pokémon that made my heart stop.

It had a slender body, sleek with muscle. Its long arms ended with short clawed hands, though a long length of green bone stretched over its arm, almost like a natural guard. It covered most of the pokémon's hands and stretched back to its elbows, where it ended in a sharp point, almost like a blade. A deep, blood-red spike protruded from its chest and its legs were a pale white, muscular and ended in two-clawed feet.

Its head was an indentical shade of white, framed by a covering of dark green fur that matched the colour of the bone crest sticking out from the top of its skull. Its eyes were a piercing red and spikes framed its cheeks.

"Gallade," I whispered and fell back against the tree trunk, heart pounding. On the one hand I was so ecstatic that Scar had led me to a trainer with a psychic... yet on the other, I wanted to run away screaming in fear from the pokémon. Cousins of the demons that I so hated and feared, I saw that this one had become accustomed to killing, like its brethren. A long cape of stolen skin floated down from around its shoulders; the inspiration for attire of so many comic book heroes.

I thanked Scar and patted him on the head as I thought about it all. On the one hand I was incredibly lucky; gallade were known to be psychic, but their expertise lay in physical attacks. It meant that I could probably get it to tell me what I wanted to know without it being able to burst my brain like a zit. Yet on the other hand, I knew that they all abided by some sort of code of honour, which meant if it disagreed with what I wanted to do – which it no doubt would – it wouldn't wait long to cut me down.

I blew out a breath and decided I would listen in to the shouting to see what was happening. I'd heard it all the while, yet I hadn't bothered to listen once.

"... as I say!" the man was screaming at his pokémon. I felt a small smile come onto my face at that – he was having trouble commanding his pokémon; it meant I wasn't the only one that suffered with that. Though on the other hand it meant that if he didn't have it under control, it wasn't likely to be able to help me.

"I don't care if it isn't honourable!" he yelled at it. My smile bloomed at the knowledge that it could at least communicate telepathically. I placed a hand on Scar's shoulder and told him to wait a moment more.

"You'll do as I say because _I'm_ your trainer!" the man screamed at the pokémon. I watched as he reached up and slapped the gallade across the face. My mouth dropped open as the pokémon stumbled back and placed a hand across its cheek, yet it didn't move to attack him back. I knew instantly that the guy had to be either confident in his abilities as a trainer or just royally stupid to attack a psychic like that. It was one thing that I always knew not to do as a trainer – in my camp back in my own time, I'd seen someone try to discipline his kadabra like that. The pokémon let the first hit go unpunished, yet when he hit the pokémon a second time the kadabra reached out and placed its hand over the man's face. We all heard his screams and he spent the next five minutes wailing that he was tasting with his eyes, seeing with his nose and hearing with his tongue.

Oddly he managed to speak as normal, regardless.

He was in such a state that Commander Flite had to put him out of his misery. The kadabra escaped quickly afterwards and we never did try to find it again – we were all too afraid to cross the creature.

I blew an uncertain breath as I tapped Scar on the shoulder. I told him to follow my lead as I pulled out my gun and placed it in the back my pants. Once I was sure it wasn't going to fall out or accidentally discharge I took a step towards the trainer and his gallade, confident my plan would go off without a hitch.

The trainer seemed to sense us approach as he turned around and gave a small nod. I repeated the gesture and tapped Scar on the side, keeping him in line and stopping him from running off and eviscerating the man.

When we were within a few paces of the man he lifted up an arm and waved. "Hey, fancy a battle?" he asked conversationally, pretending like he hadn't done anything wrong.

I smiled and snatched his arm from the air. He gasped as I twisted it round behind his back, drew my gun and placed it to the back of his skull.

"Don't move," I growled as I flicked the safety off the weapon. "Your gallade makes one move on me or my pokémon and I blow your brains out." I twisted his arm further up his back and shoved the gun into his head once more. "Understand?"

He nodded quickly and fearfully. I smiled and nodded at Scar as he approached the man, teeth ablaze and claws catching all the sunlight.

"Good," I said and pushed the man's head with the weapon again, tuning out his protests and pleas. "Now you," I hissed as I turned around to his pokémon. "Gallade. Do as I say and I won't paint the ground with your trainer's brains."

The pokémon watched me a moment, seemingly in curiosity. Its mouth dropped open in a yawn and I felt my heart stop beating at the sight of all the tiny sharp teeth. I pushed the fear aside and glared at the pokémon as I twisted its trainer's arm again. "Are you listening to me?"

Pain blossomed in the back of my head. _[I am good sir. But you seem to think that I care what happens to this man you hold hostage.]_

I blinked, dumbfounded. That certainly wasn't expected. I felt my grip on the man loosen as I stared quizzically at the pokémon. "He's your trainer," I pointed out. "Shouldn't you care what happens to him?"

The pokémon moved as if it were shrugging. _[I cannot bring myself to care for those who disregard the lives and wellbeing of others.]_ It folded its blade-covered arms and nodded at me. _[Even you sir, who carries the stench of death and the blood of my kin, is able to act with some degree of honour towards others. I have suffered under the control of this man since my days as an infant. He thought he could beat me into obedience like he has all his others. It was only my own code of honour that forbid from killing him.]_ The pokémon pointed towards the man with a large degree of disdain. _[I may fight those weaker than myself, but I will not cut them down.]_

I frowned and chewed up my lip with the sudden development of it all. Obviously I was weaker than the pokémon – that gave me some leverage against it. It wouldn't kill me, but that didn't say it wouldn't be able to leave me for dead either. I growled for the trainer to stand up, ignoring his cries and protests as I hauled him to his feet and looked back at the gallade.

"Well, that leaves us with a chance for a compromise," I told the creature as I watched Scar from the corner of my eye. "I need you to help me with a translating something from my pokémon – in return I can do away with your trainer like he deserves."

The gallade hummed and pressed a hand to its chin. _[Merely killing the man is not a noble death, however. To be cut down without a chance to fight for one's life is unjust.]_

I thought about it before I took my gun away from the man's head, flicked the safety back on and holstered it. "I'm giving you a ten-second head start," I growled venomously into his ear. "Then I'm going to set my charmeleon on you. If you can escape him, you'll be allowed to live." I tore my face away from his and focused again on the pokémon. "Sound fair?"

The pokémon managed a nod. _[It is not a duel to the death, but it is the best your species can manage. He has the opportunity to keep living; it is in the God's hands if he lives now or not.]_

I nodded once at the pokémon at threw its trainer away from me. "Start running," I growled at him. He stared at me, disbelieving and rubbing his injured arm until I gave him a dark smirk. "Ten."

He turned and bolted instantly. Scar hissed and went to chase him until I barked his name. He twisted his head and looked at me quizzically.

"If you do kill him, make sure no one sees it," I commanded him. He growled an affirmative and I furthered, "Do what you will with the body afterwards too. As long as you can't be traced back to it."

He hissed happily as I nodded for him to chase after the man. I plucked Lacey's ball and released her before the charmeleon had disappeared from sight completely, not trusting the gallade. Once Lacey was out of her ball I turned back towards the psychic pokémon.

"I don't want people finding out Scar killed him and then leading an angry mob towards him," I explained to the pokémon. "They'd cut him down without mercy. I'm being as fair and just as I can be."

The gallade nodded once. _[It is a varied code of honour to my own, yet I can appreciate that you live by your own code. I shall not argue with your decision.]_ There was a scream in the near-distance, followed by a roar that made Lacey jump and hiss towards the distance. The gallade stared into the direction of the noise before it shrugged and turned back to me. _[The Gods have made their decision.]_ It held out a hand towards Lacey. _[I take it I am to assist in translating the dark woodlander's speech?]_

I shot a glance at Lacey, unable to help myself from smirking at the gallade's analogy of her. "She's the one," I confirmed for the pokémon. "I need to ask her a few questions and I need to know definite answers, rather than my own guesses at what she says."

_[And what is to happen to me afterwards, good sir?]_ the gallade asked. _[Are you going to kill me as you originally planned?]_

I gulped nervously and alarm flooded through me completely. It knew all along and hadn't once attempted to attack me. I didn't know what that meant, nor could I fathom any sort of explanation for it. I shook my head and said, "Well it's obvious I don't want you repeating what you hear. So if you give me your word you won't discuss this with anyone else, I give ou mine that I'll let you go free."

The gallade looked at me for a long moment then at Lacey, who glared up at the pokémon, her eyes narrowed in distaste. Finally the gallade nodded and folded its arms once more. _[I accept those terms. Now, ask your questions, sir and I shall translate for you.]_

I thanked it and turned to Lacey with a frown on my face. She looked up at me with a smirk and I felt my own temper rise, though I forced it down and crossed my arms at her. "I want to know about Lucy," I said slowly, afraid my emotions on the matter would betray me. I didn't know how long the gallade would entertain playing translator for us so I needed to make every question count.

I needed to know everything about it, though strangely the one thing I wanted to know most wasn't why she'd done it, but how.

"How'd you manage to take Lucy down?" I asked her. "She's – she was – stronger than you. How did you manage to take her down?"

Lacey smirked and glanced at a finger before she started to pick her teeth. She opened her mouth to speak and I would hear the start of her grunts and growls before the gallade's translation overtook every other sound.

The words that burned into my brain were harsh and cold. _[I would have thought it obvious. Though apparently I overestimated the capabilities of your species. It's simple when you think about it... I apologise good sir.]_ The gallade's tone suddenly changed; turning back to its usual chivalrous tune. _[Much of the dark woodlander's words hold no meaning or translation within the human language. It is rather difficult to provide an exact translation.]_

I sighed and lifted up a hand to rub my eyes. "Then just give me a summary of what she says."

I saw the pokémon nod from the corner of my eyes. Once more pain spiked before words managed to accompany it. _[She states that it should be obvious how she achieved such a result. She points out that it was you, after all that managed to teach her a number of techniques for such a deed.]_

My head switched between both pokémon in quick succession. My brain couldn't work fast enough to keep up with everything and eventually it all hit a brick wall. "What... I taught you?" I said slowly as I pointed at myself. I stood there and thought for a good while on just what I'd managed to teach her. Sure there was making her faster and have more stamina, we'd just started getting her to learn how to use leech seeds, then there was the poisonous techniques she'd been working on for some time...

It was like a light flashed on in my brain.

"You _poisoned_ her?" I asked, amazed. "But that alone shouldn't have been able to take her down!"

The nuzleaf grinned at me and gave me her reply. This time though I had to wait until it was finished before the gallade translated.

_[She says that it was not just the poison, sir. She says that rapidash are instinctively ones to run when they are frightened. The fear made the creature's heart pump faster, and thus the poison circulated faster. She says while the pokémon was afraid, it was easy for her to hide within the forests and attack her – even to set small traps for her to run into. Apparently the rapidash stumbled over a number of branches the dark woodlander had left out. Supposedly the rapidash fell over and couldn't manage to regain her feet in her fear. The woodlander says she managed to slice the pokémon's neck on the first blow, yet she realised afterwards that one slice may be capable of killing, yet would lead to an obvious trail.]_

It took no time at all for those pieces to fall together in my mind. "So you attacked her twice more to make it look like it had been a three-clawed pokémon that attacked her."

Lacey gave a small nod and I sighed as I pushed a hand threw my hair. Adryan was so convinced that the man had tried to cover up his murder of Lucy – he was only wrong about the culprit. I was ashamed that in some way, I felt impressed by her abilities to cover it all up.

I shook my head and asked only one word, "Why?"

Yet again the gallade waited for her to speak first. _[She says that she has her reasons; that this was the only way to make a change. She says that while you may not understand now, she hopes you never come to fully understand, as that will mean it was all for nothing.]_

It was gibberish. My brain couldn't make sense of it and instead I grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her. "Tell me what's really going on here!" I demanded of her.

She snarled and pushed me off her before she knocked me well and truly to the floor. She moved so she was stood above me, her lips pulled back in a sneer as she gave an answer.

_[I do not understand most of what she says, sir,]_ the gallade informed me. _[Although, I must ask you; how much does she actually know?]_

I looked away from my pokémon and to the gallade, a confused frown across my face. "What do you mean 'how much does she actually know'? What are we talking about here?"

The gallade shrugged. _[I do not know, sir. She says that you revealed something to her, yet you never truly seem able to see anything outside of your person.]_

I lay there on the floor for a moment, stunned at the gallade's words. Sure I'd managed to find out how little I perceived towards my friends, seeing as Adryan managed to stun me with his revelation, but I never thought there was so much else I was missing too. Apparently I had told Lacey something that I'd never really seen her reactions too.

I sat down and thought about it all. The only thing I'd ever really told her was that I was from the future. When I'd told her that... I remembered that it looked like she pitied me. I remembered that after I'd told her everything, she seemed to fall under my command instantly and even started to look out for me, like she was trying to protect me. I'd seen her looking at me when she thought I wasn't looking so many times and always thought it was resentment for capturing her.

Yet I looked up at her and saw her giving me the same look again. It was pity; it couldn't be seen any other way. But underneath that there was something else... sadness? She looked sad... but not for herself. For _me_. She looked lost and distantly hopeful, yet only when I met her eyes did the hopefulness shatter into hopelessness.

I managed to push myself up and looked at her in a new light. "Lace... just how much do you know?"

She smiled and turned away from me. I heard her grunt only two syllables, which the gallade managed to translate perfectly for me;

_[Pray you never know.]_

I stared at her for a while, unable to think, yet alone able to say anything. Finally I swallowed and nodded reluctantly, swearing to myself that I would get all the details at a later date. From what I'd managed to put together, Lacey had killed Adryan's pokémon because of something I didn't know... something that she didn't want me to ever know. The way she looked at me with pity and sadness made me realise it was probably – in some twisted sort of way – an attempt to help me.

I blew out a long breath and swept my hair from my face. "Thanks," I said as I turned to the gallade. "You can go on your way now. There's nothing else I really want to know."

The psychic hummed and stepped towards me, meeting my eyes with its own. It held my gaze for a long moment before it touched its chin with a hand.

_[There is something about you... that I cannot establish,]_ it told me, filling me with some sort of panic towards an unknown reason. _[Perhaps I would understand if I were more proficient at psychic arts, but I was forced into my current form far too soon to develop such abilities.]_ There was a sound like it clicking its tongue before it folded its arms again. _[I wish to make a proposal, sir. I do not know what this feeling is, yet I feel I will understand it further if I am to be around you longer.]_

My stomach pretty much froze over at the thought. Having a demon follow me around on my journey? Having one of those _things_ there when I tried to sleep... when I travelled or even when I had to answer nature's call? It went without saying that it was a giant, massive, lit-up-in-neon '**NO!**'

The gallade reached out towards me. _[I know you loathe my kind, sir. Yet I propose this to help you.]_

My stomach flipped in horror at the implications of it all. Yet a part of my brain told me I couldn't pass up such an opportunity; no matter what way I looked at it, I would have a psychic on my hands! My party may have been legally full, yet I knew that I could always pawn him off on someone else and just use him whenever I needed a psychic – granted I knew it would have to be an extremely desperate case for me to require a demon's help again.

I figured that if nothing else, I could leave him with Chris to look after for a while. I remembered her saying that she didn't have many psychics – I doubted she would pass up the opportunity to get a fully-grown and able gallade to care for.

My face fell into an uneasy scowl. "Fine, I'll accept your help. But my team's kind of full right now, so I'll have to leave you under the care of a friend for a while. She's a breeder – she knows about caring for pokémon and you'll be able to fight as often as you like, even be able to pick a mate. The long story short is that at the moment, I can't really look after you to the best of my abilities. But I know that she'll be able to and as an added bonus, if you need me, or vice versa, it'll only take a quick message to bring one of us to the other."

The pokémon glared at me. _[I do not appreciate attempts of bribery, regardless of what I am being offered. However, I cannot impose on you and make anyone else suffer. Is this female you mention shall be able to accommodate me whilst you care for the others, I shall accept such an offer.]_

I let out a breath I didn't even realise I was holding. At least it meant I could still technically own a psychic, even if I never really had to do much to look after it. I grinned up at the pokémon and fished a poké ball out of my bag. "Scar's probably destroyed your old one now, so you'll need a new one of these." I threw it up in the air before I caught it again. "So have you got a name?"

The pokémon tucked an arm underneath its chest and bowed. _[I am known to my brethren as Alistair. You may also address me as such.]_

I nodded and introduced myself to the pokémon before I tossed a ball at it and captured it within. Once the pokémon was safely secured inside the ball, I tossed it in my bag and threw an uneasy smile at Lacey. She didn't seem much pleased by the idea either.

"He won't be our problem when we reach Fallarbor," I promised her and glanced around the area, trying to discern where Scar had ran off too. "At best he's just going to become a man-whore on Chris' ranch. Now come on," I said with a quick nod. "We better find Scar before someone finds him with that dead trainer."

She had the gall to shoot me a look of jealousy when she heard that. It wasn't like she'd never killed before.

Hopefully Lucy would just be the first and last of my friends' pokémon that she killed.


	35. Help Hater

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Help Hater

* * *

**

_There are three types of friends: those like food, without which you can't live; those like medicine, which you need occasionally; and those like an illness, which you never want_~ Anon

**-O-O-O-**

"_Fate. Destiny. Free will. Pre-destination._

_Humans have a habit for putting words to things we'll never understand. Yet if we named this process too, it would be one of the biggest ironies there were – after all, who actually understands why we name the things we don't understand?"_

- Tabitha Pondr, author. Poet. Drunkard. _(April 19__th__, 3004)_

**-O-O-O-**

Irony and fate are wicked things.

I used to think that if I had been given a purpose, everything would work out perfectly and it would be the easiest thing in the world to do.

Capturing Alistair seemed to throw that idea to the wind.

His poké ball felt like poison in my hand. Just touching the thing made me feel sick; to know that something related to those demons was locked within.

I knew that really I shouldn't have treated him with such disdain. It wasn't his fault and in all honesty; I was letting my hated of gardevoir cloud my judgement.

Lacey and Xander both made the point that I shouldn't get rid of him. But I couldn't listen to either of them. I didn't want to have that creature hovering over me when I slept, ate or answered nature's call.

He was, however, my responsibility while he was on my person. I would let him out to exercise and eat just like everyone else in my team, though the main difference was that I never had him out alone. It may have just been paranoia, but I didn't trust the gallade as far as I could throw him.

In addition to every other problem I thought up about him, I also didn't like the fact he could communicate perfectly with me. At any other time, with any other pokémon, I would have been happy. But I suffered it with him and it meant I couldn't feign ignorance so that I could ignore him.

The day after I'd caught him, he remained silent, standing off at the sides while everyone else ran through their drills. They all respected his power; I could tell that much, but each and every one of my pokémon seemed to prefer the skarmory instead. Unlike most wild pokémon, she didn't seem to want blood from everything she saw, instead she appeared content enough to try and sate her curiosity towards everything.

She was friendly and inquisitive; a welcome change from the general insanity that composed my team.

As the team trained I sat down underneath the shade of a tree, atop my jacket, which was spread over the ash-covered ground. I could hear my team running through their exercises, even the skarmory – though it may have been mostly through trying to join in with everyone else. I watched them for a little while before I pulled out my notebook and began scrawling plans inside.

My head snapped up from the various maps and strategies I was planning out when I heard Alistair approach me. He nodded an acknowledgement as I tensed instinctively, expecting him to attack me out of the blue at any moment.

He stopped a few paces away from me, tried to lean over to read what was in my lap and then stood completely still as he watched me.

_[Might I ask what you are planning, sir?]_ he hummed into my skull.

I pulled a face and wiggled my little finger in my ear. "Strategies," I answered bluntly. I looked up at the creature and sighed, knowing it would be expecting more than that. "I'm planning out a few different things that everyone could do. I've bumped into an Elite and a Champion that were abusing their power so far; I might not know the reasons for why they were doing that, but I need to work on a few ways to take down stronger opponents. Although I really don't agree with what Lacey did to the rapidash, she showed me that she's capable of taking down a stronger opponent – granted with a lot of trickery and luck."

He squatted opposite me as I pushed my chicken-scratch writing towards him and pointed to a few highlighted words. "I can get Xander to cloak everywhere with thick icy fog if I need to, though that's a lot of luck too. As is getting Loki to hide within shadows and darkness. Scar and Erra I'm not too sure on at the moment, but it's looking a lot like I'm going to have to rely a lot on luck."

I shook my head and looked up at the pokémon. As much as I didn't like him, he was still a psychic and a fighter to boot, which meant that he had to have some idea about tactics.

"What do you think about this?" I asked him as I pointed to more of my illegible scribbles.

I felt a laugh echo in my brain as he folded his arms. _[What makes you think that I am able to read your language sir?]_

My arms dropped back down to the floor. "Um... well..." I rubbed the back of my neck and frowned up at him. "You're a _psychic_, aren't you? Shouldn't you be able to?"

_[And what makes you think all psychics are masters of everything?]_ he enquired, humour in his tone. _[You may find it hard to believe sir, but not all psychics are capable of liquidising brains or creating supernovas. There are some, like myself, who are only capable of telepathy – some cannot even manage that.]_

I squinted up at him as I scratched the top of my head. "But every other psychic I've met was powerful," I protested.

_[You had the good or ill fortune to run into them then,]_ he answered me, becoming slightly defensive. His mouth opened wide in a yawn that made my flinch, though he gave me a mental apology as he moved to cover his mouth with a hand. _[But as I was saying; not every psychic is capable of large feats. Do you actually realise how much we must train, how specific our diets must be and how much we must concentrate to do anything with psychic powers?]_

My notebook fell through my lap and onto the floor as I leant my elbows on my legs. "I don't," I admitted. "I thought... I thought you all were big and powerful. That's what all the pokédex and book references say."

_[Then whoever writes such information is a fool.]_ Alistair shook his head and sat down on the floor opposite me, crossing his legs over each other in some sort of meditative position. _[It takes ample concentration for me to talk to you like this sir. Once I became what you know as a kirlia, my old master forced me to evolve with a radioactive stone. In addition to my species' lack of prowess with psychic abilities, I am rather sub-par with many psychic feats. I may be able to levitate a pebble for you, perhaps even a stone, but my true abilities lie within physical attacks.]_

I watched him as he went silent, distrust and distaste both bubbling through my stomach. In addition to everything else, slight twinges of anger and annoyance bounced through me from the realisation that the first psychic I happened to capture was incapable of many of the feats I needed him for.

I told myself it didn't matter. I turned away from him and watched my other pokémon training; confident in the fact I could pawn him off easily. After all, I had captured him last – it was only fair that I didn't kick out one of my own team.

A small niggle in my mind told me I should have let Erra rest with Professor Birch or Chris. But I didn't want to pawn her off on someone who would end up undoing my very slight progress with getting her over her phobia of battling. In addition to that, I hadn't been able to get through to Birch's phone at all – the stupid woman on the other end kept telling me that the number I was dialling no longer existed.

I groaned to myself as I picked up my notebook and thought about something else to scribble in it. I glanced up at Alistair and knew he could feel me watching, my thoughts confirmed when I felt a small pinprick of pain.

_[I know you do not like my species__,__] _his voice whispered into my brain. _[And although you sir, are a bigot, I know that eventually it will not influence your decisions. I may not be able to predict the future sir, but I do believe we were fated to meet. Even if you do manage to send me away for some time, fate may just find ways to constantly bring me back to your aid.]_

I couldn't help but shudder at that. The way his voice sounded so pleasant and confident of the fact made me paranoid that he had to be planning something.

If fate was truly trying to get me to help the celebi by giving me a gallade, it obviously didn't think things out too well.

* * *

It took me a day longer to reach Fallarbor. As soon as I crossed into the stone-covered streets of the town I made a beeline for the pokémon centre. The sooner I could get rid of Alistair; the better, I told myself.

The town was surprisingly modern and clean for a somewhere that suffered a continuous rainfall of ash. It was filled with rows and rows of residential houses and apartment blocks; street after street lined with the same beige bricks walls and roofs. A few miles north of town was a large observatory built to look over sections of the mountains, separated from everything else by large metallic fences. If it were abandoned, it would have fit in perfectly in a horror movie.

The pokémon centre was in a large section of the town, like a large square, of sorts. There was a contest hall like one I'd seen before in Slateport and even trainer provision shops. All the signs for the gym pointed towards a large building on the furthest western reaches of the town – even from a distance I could still make out the large neon sign that announced the building's definition.

Once I got into the pokémon centre I handed over the members of my team that needed healing before I found the public phone booths. They were in two rows of six, almost like the internet cafe I'd visited before – except there were single large screens in place of a computer.

I found one in the corner and stared at the instructions for the thing, hoping the experience would be far less embarrassing than using the internet. It seemed simple enough – put in money, dial a number and wait for them to pick up. Once it tried describing how to transfer a poké ball by the machine though, it became far too technical for me. I had to hope Chris would be able to do it all for me.

I flipped open my phone and typed in Chris' number onto the screen after I put a few coins into the machine. It rang only a few times before Chris' face appeared on screen, the woman looking a lot more worn out than when I last saw her.

She squinted at the screen before recognition bloomed across her face. "Hey!" she greeted me warmly. "How comes you're ringing me on a vid-phone?" she asked, her face twisting in confusion. "Is your own phone dead or something? These cost a lot more than ringing me from your own phone, you realise?"

I smiled back at her. "Well if they're so expensive, just why do you have one?"

She sighed and pressed her lips into a fine line. "Political registrations and all that. Apparently every business needs to have one – it's a way of companies being able to have a sly nose around your place from just a phone call." She shook her head and swiped some food stains from her apron. "Plus, it's a _home and business_ number; every home and business phone there is has video-call properties built in." I could tell she was about to say I should know that myself when she coughed and plastered a smile on her face. "So did you really just ring for a chat? I'm willing to oblige if you are – it's costing you money, not me."

"'Willing to oblige'?" I parroted. "You sure know how to make a guy feel special." I shook my head as we shared a smirk. "Well... I needed a favour. Sort of. I've got a seventh pokémon that I was hoping you could look after for a bit."

She folded her arms and lifted an eyebrow. "So am I supposed to do this out of the kindness of my heart? Yes, I like you well enough and maybe even consider you something like a friend – don't be too certain on that, I don't know you well enough yet," she added quickly. "But at the end of the day; I'm running a business. It's damned hard work being self-employed and the costs of looking after all these pokémon isn't cheap, you know?"

I smiled at her as I fished Alistair's poké ball out of my bag. "But I think you could benefit from this too," I told her as I placed the ball on the counter. "I caught a gallade... but I really don't want it near me at the moment."

Her arms dropped and she leant towards her screen. "Why?" she asked. "Did it do something bad? I'm not taking in no psycho pokémon!" she proclaimed, adamantly shaking her head.

"Nothing like that," I told her as I cupped the poké ball. "I just... there's a few things I need to sort out before I can look after him." I dropped my hand from the counter. "But I figured that you could benefit too. You were saying that you only had two ralts babies, right?" I asked, hopeful that would sway her to accept the offer. "Well since he's my seventh, I figured that you would probably want to look after him and use him for breeding."

She folded her arms as she leant back in her chair and smiled. "I appreciate the sentiment, but gallade happen to take life-partners. And at the moment, I've only got two females who are capable producing offspring with him – one of whom already has a breeding partner and the other keeps attacking males instead of breeding with them." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, flicking her fingers free from the knots. "On top of that, I'm trying to purchase one or two Unovian pokémon. I'm just not sure I have the money right now."

I deflated instantly. "Oh, right. Well, thanks anyway," I said as I sagged in the chair. "Sorry I bothered you then."

"Wait," she sighed as I went to switch off the call. She bit her lip as her mental debate became palpable, even over a video screen. "I'll look after him for two days. If he seems to be bonding with my mismagius, I'll let him stay on for longer until they breed. The usual deal I offer trainers is seventy-thirty."

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. "I get seventy percent?" I asked, completely bewildered. "No wonder why you're losing money."

She snorted and waved her real hand at me. "_I_ get seventy percent. I look after the pokémon while they're here, feed them, clean up after them; even get people in to train them. While the pokémon's pregnant, I've still got to do all that – except they tend to eat more – even the males, weirdly enough." She lifted an eyebrow at that and shook her head as her face fell again. "Then until the egg's hatched and the pokémon's old enough to fend for itself – that takes usually about two months – I'm still looking after them. Depending on the pokémon, the cost of looking after them is usually half of what I earn. If I can get your gallade to take my mismagius as a partner, I should be able to earn back at least triple with a ralts child; just over double if it's a misdreavous."

I nodded along with her explanations. "So you'll take him for two days then?"

She smiled and glanced backwards as something behind her crashed. She swore as the sound made her jump and her metallic arm shoot up into the air, punching invisible enemies of its own accord.

"Sorry," she said quickly as she turned back.

"Why does that act up so much?" I asked without thinking. I winced as I heard my words, fully expecting a verbal lashing.

Instead Chris just sighed and wrapped her fingers around the metal of her artificial arm. "It's not the best model there is. I could get a better one if I wanted, but that would mean spending money that I've set aside for my business. I have to work a lot harder than most people for everything, just because I'm missing an arm. I don't want to fail at this; it's my dream and I'm slowly making it happen. In order to get what you really want, you're going to have to make sacrifices along the way."

She stared at her metallic arm for a long moment, apparently lost in thought, her fingers drumming across it. Finally she seemed to snap back to reality as her gaze swept back to the screen. "But anyway, as I was saying; yes I'll take your pokémon for two days. If nothing happens, I'll give him back to you. It's hard to get indeterminate breeders, so I can't really pass up this chance."

I stared at the video of her with a blank expression. "What's so 'indeterminate' about them?"

She sighed and buried her real hand in her hair again. "Indeterminate means that they have no shape. The entire ralts family – kirlia, gardevoir and gallade included all appear to us as slightly human, but that's simply an illusion. Their true forms are something else entirely, but they never reveal it to anyone but a mate. Each pokémon is only capable of producing offspring with other, similar pokémon. I'll explain it all to you another time if you want – when it's not costing you all your pennies."

I thanked her and cursed the machine as it demanded more of my money to keep the conversation going. "So how do I manage to transfer the poké ball over then?" I asked after feeding the machine a few more coins.

Chris managed a smile and guided me through the actions. It was simple enough really. I just had to place the ball on a small dish that held it perfectly. There was a large column above it connected to the screen that managed to somehow warp the poké ball out of existence from in front of me. It appeared on screen with Chris seconds afterwards and my jaw dropped open instantly, making Chris laugh.

"I'll look after him for two days. I'll text you and let you know what's happening then," she offered as she glanced at Alistair's poké ball. "So has he got a name?"

I forgot who she was talking about before she held the ball up against the screen. "Alistair," I told her with a small laugh. "I've explained everything to him, so he'll know who you are. I'm going to be heading past Mauville again soon enough," I told her as I wrung my fingers together. "Is it alright if I pop by and see you?"

She smiled again at me and managed a laugh. "Enough with the nervous teenager act! Girls your own age might find the shyness somewhat cute, but it's not going to work on me!" She waved her artificial hand at me, leant back in her chair and shrugged. "You're more than welcome to. Just give me a few days notice, alright? Now get ahead and carry on training your pokémon! You're wasting time you could be training them as well as money!"

I thanked her once more before I hung up the phone and leant back in the chair. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a number of posters decorating the wall, all various different colours and sizes, advertising simple things like drug addiction help groups, babysitting jobs and even piano lessons.

One in particular caught my eye though.

It was a bright, almost luminous green sheet of card, cut into the strange onion shape of that stupid time-pixie's head.

I leapt from my seat and snatched the paper from the board, almost unable to believe what I was reading.

"_Time-travellers help group. Friday, June 13__th__, 3010"_

My eyes were wide as I stared at the paper. There were only two days to wait until the supposed time-travellers help group. It couldn't be genuine – there just couldn't be a whole _group_ devoted to people that had suffered like me!

But then my mind started to click into gear. Adryan had pretty much explained to me that there had been other people before me that had travelled through time – it _could_ have been possible for it to be legitimate.

But I remembered Jennifer and Erica. Jennifer had been in contact with the celebi and Erica had told me that there were various other people the creature had contacted, each and every one of them clandestine and traceable only through Erica. They wouldn't just suddenly start to announce their presence on a town's bulletin board, of all things.

I snorted and tossed the advertisement to the floor. It couldn't be real.

Instead I decided to focus more on training my pokémon, like Chris had suggested. I had the skarmory, Loki and Erra on me – perhaps the three that I needed to train the most. Even if I had Scar on me, I didn't trust letting him out anywhere inside the town – he still had the unruly habit of trying to slice open every human he encountered; something that I probably wasn't helping with.

I left the centre pretty quickly and followed some of the signs out of town. Along the way I decided to let out the skarmory and try to get her used to life in towns. The streets only had a few people coming and going, though the metallic bird seemed happy enough to try and follow everyone and anyone about their business.

"Come here!" I hissed at her. I stopped myself from dragging her along by her feathers – I'd only end up cutting myself on them instead. The bird's head twitched in my direction, curious yellow eyes focused straight on me. "You need a name though as well, don't you?" I asked myself more than her. "Something metal related?"

She hissed and nipped me on the shoulder.

"Alright!" I exclaimed with a wince. "Nothing obvious like that."

She bounced away from me, head twitching in the direction of every person. A brunette woman, her hair pulled back in a tight bun and wearing a sharp black business suit walked past, catching the skarmory's attention.

Almost instantly the bird started following the woman. It was like something out of a comedy sketch show – the woman turned round only to find a metallic bird bouncing after her. The woman stopped and stared at the skarmory, only for the bird to spread her wings, display blood-red feathers and screech at the woman.

The poor lady turned away and started walking faster, only for the skarmory to start bouncing after her faster. Every time the woman stopped, the skarmory would spread her wings again and screech once more.

"Stop that!" I growled at the skarmory. She screeched at me as I flung my arms round her neck and held her back. "S-sorry," I apologised to the woman as I continued to wrestle the large steel bird.

"Don't chase after people like that!" I chastised her as the woman disappeared. The skarmory looked at me again, her head cocking from side to side at my words. "You can't follow after people like that; they don't appreciate it!"

Again the bird just cocked her head at me. I pressed my hand over my face and sighed, only for the skarmory to nip my shoulder again.

"You're quite the attention seeker, aren't you?" I laughed as I stroked her face. Oddly she didn't attack me, nor make any movement to stop me; instead she just embraced the attention. "You know, you remind me of a girl back in my camp," I told the skarmory. She looked at me, amber eyes focused entirely on me as I spoke.

"There was this little girl in my camp – she was about six or seven," I told her as I found a bench to sit down on. I squatted on top of the bench's back rest, placing my feet on the bench itself. The skarmory bounced around the side of the bench and cawed, demanding my attention.

"She was an attention seeker too," I laughed and patted the pokémon's neck. "She was always curious about everything. Nothing seemed to scare her; she'd walk onto a field when we were training – even if we were going through firing practice. The amount of times we'd have to quickly stop because we feared we'd end up killing her. At least it taught us how to keep our attention everywhere when we were trying to shoot a target, I guess."

I shook my head to myself and fished in my pack for some pokémon food. I grabbed a handful and held it out for the skarmory, refusing to let her have anymore when she nipped me. Eventually she started to learn not to nip my hand and started eating a lot more gently.

"Better," I said as I petted her with my other hand. "But anyway, she was always trying to find out as much as she could; she always had to know everything she could, even if she didn't understand what she was being told." I sighed and shook my head. "She died about a year ago – for me at least. I don't even want to try and figure out the actual time it would be. I'll tell you about that all later," I told the skarmory as I patted her on the cheek. She cawed once more and I smiled at her.

"Her curiosity got the better of her. She loved pokémon, which was pretty strange for any one of us – we were brought up to fear you guys." I gave the skarmory a bit more food and shook my head. "She ended up getting eaten by a swalot... I can't say it would have been a quick death. Poor girl." I shook my head again and forced a smile at the bird. "Her name was Sophia. You really do remind me a lot of her."

The skarmory cawed and stuck her head in my bag. I groaned and coaxed her head out, only to be nipped on the shoulder again by her.

I winced and rubbed the shoulder. "And this is what I get for sharing my history with you. But I still think it suits you, Sophie."

She looked down at me, cawed once and then stuffed her head into my bag again. I groaned and wrestled her out once more, a little surprised that she seemed to have accepted the name so willingly.

Or to be exact; she hadn't even understood it in the first place.

I spent the next hour leading her out of town, occasionally saying her name to see whether or not she was listening. Sometimes she would, other times she'd see something that caught her eye and ended up chasing after it.

Despite their size, I discovered that skarmory were actually pretty fast runners.

The postman that she chased down two streets seemed to learn that too.

When I finally got out of town I spent the next few hours trying to train my pokémon. We saw a few lotad and lombre while we were training, though it felt incredibly weird to try and get any of my pokémon to attack them. Thankfully there were other pokémon and a few trainers to battle against instead.

I noticed that Sophie seemed to spend a lot of time watching Erra though. Every time the magnemite took flight, Sophie's vulture-eyes followed her wherever she went. I walked up next to the skarmory and stood next to her in silence a little bit, my own gaze more on Loki as he tried to leap up and catch Erra from the sky.

Finally I turned round to Sophie and asked, "Why don't you fly after her?"

Her head cocked in my direction, feathers ruffling as Erra flew past her once more.

"Take off after her," I told her as I pointed to her and then to Erra. Sophie still seemed confused and so I ended up having to mime flying to the skarmory. Loki looked up at me and burst into fits of laughter before he mimicked me, screeching and growling all the while. Sophie stared at us before she spread her wings and screeched, though didn't flap them like Loki and I were with our arms.

I let my arms drop back to my side as I watched Sophie in silence again. She turned away from me and watched Erra for another minute before everything seemed to click in my mind.

"You... can't fly, can you?" I asked her. The skarmory turned back towards me and spread her wings with another caw. I ran my eyes over them, hopeful I could find some sort of damage, yet I found nothing. There wasn't any physical abnormality that stopped her from flying, which meant that she obviously had never learnt.

The thought of that made me frown. It had to be instinctual for a flying pokémon to learn how to fly, I assumed. Though if her parents had died before she had been taught how to fly, or even if they were unable to fly themselves, it could have explained it all.

I patted the skarmory on the back of the neck and ran my fingers across her feathers. "How about once we're done in Fallarbor, after the gym and everything; I help teach you how to fly?"

She didn't seem to understand my words, yet after a lot of miming and some translation from Loki, Sophie seemed to agree to the idea. A giddy smile crept over my face at the thought of me being able to ride atop a skarmory, watching as towns became nothing but dots in the far distance beneath us.

I knew that soon enough Scar would end up evolving into a charizard too. Sophie could then pass on what she learnt and my mental image changed to one of me sat on a charizard-Scar's back, with Sophie and Erra flying along beside us.

At least some parts of that dream are still possible.

* * *

I spent the next two days training my pokémon and attempting to get Sophie to understand her name. I managed to get her to respond half the time to her name, though I think half of that were just her curious glances upon hearing the sound of my voice.

I also spent a fair bit of my time texting Mia. I remembered everything that Adryan had said to me about her, as well as everything he had taken the piss about, yet I still didn't understand it all.

However, I did know that eventually I may have ended up telling her everything about my past too. I didn't want only Adryan knowing everything, especially since I began to distrust his motives. While I knew he wasn't going to fall off the rails and start indiscriminately murdering people, I was still a little worried what he would do if he found out about Lacey.

Though I'd learnt from my mistakes with Adryan; I knew that if I were to trust Mia with everything, I would have to know her first, rather than just going on faith.

It was all a big mess in my mind, forever buzzing around and distracting me from any other thought. When I wasn't out training my pokémon, I was in the pokémon centre and using their internet access, trying to find out anything that might have stood a chance with helping me.

I did find out why Birch wasn't answering his phone though. Apparently he had been caught having an affair with his receptionist – he had to change all his personal contact details to stop the media attacking him anymore.

I thought back and remembered his receptionist, _vividly_. Somehow, I wasn't too surprised.

The main thing that caught my attention was that the 'time-traveller's help group' advertisement was back up again. The last time I'd seen it, I'd scrunched it up and left it on the floor. The one up on the billboard was barren of any creases, which meant that a new one had to have been placed up.

I took the new one down and held it in my hands for a while, debating over whether or not I should go.

I realised that if someone had managed to put a new one up, there had to be a chance that they were serious about it all. If the group was actually real, I knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

I ended up following the directions on the advertisement to a small little building opposite a large park covered in a sprinkling of ash. Inside the building was a large room filled with plastic chairs all placed out in a circle and a long white table covered with plates of biscuits, big pots of coffee and tea; even a small plate of cakes.

It reminded me a lot of what an addict's self-help group was meant to look like. I was about to just turn tail and leave when a man smiled and waved at me.

He wore a simple white shirt with rolled up sleeves, dark blue jeans and a pair of white shoes, while his hair was brown and gelled up into small spikes.

He didn't look anything like the crazy lunatic I pictured hosting such a group. He walked up to me, nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"First timer, huh?" he said conversationally. He looked like he was in his thirties and a plain voice – someone that blended in well with a crowd. I thought about my own appearance and wondered idly if that was a trait the celebi looked for when it abducted its victims – after all, people were far less likely to miss someone who never stood out.

"Um... you could say that," I answered him as I glanced around the room, looking for anyone else. "So, this meeting thing," I said somewhat hesitantly.

The man laughed. "We get a fair share of crazies here, I can't deny that. But some people... well; you can't help but believe they actually experienced something." He shook his head and glanced back at the doorway. "We don't do names or physical contact here either... some people seem to think that if their names get known, some sort of psychic will find them and hunt them down. Some think that if they touch someone, they might get warped through time again. But we exist as a place for people to talk about everything they've seen; to serve as a comfort for some, a link to sanity for others.

"Stay and listen, you might find someone with a story similar to yours," he told me. "They'll all be a little unbelievable though." He winked and drew his hands out of his pockets. "I was born in eighty-six, believe it or not."

I did the math quickly in my head. "So you're twenty-four." I folded my arms and gave him a barely amused smiled. "That's not that hard to believe."

A grin appeared on his face. "_Twenty-one_, eighty-six. We'd only just started capturing and training pokémon then."

My mouth dropped open completely as the man walked away from me. I wanted to ask him questions about it all. I wanted to know how he'd been taken from his time. _Why_ he'd been taken. Surely there had to be a reason for it all. He couldn't have just been randomly picked up from one time and then dropped in another.

But people started filling in and he began greeting them all too, effectively stopping me from asking him any questions. I growled as I ground my teeth and instead decided to sit down on one of the chair and wait for everything to start.

In all there were five people who turned up to the entire meeting. Me, the man who greeted me, a thin woman with black curly hair and chocolate skin, another woman who seemed to be trying to hide her face with her trilby hat, then finally a strange man with jet black hair, a good few days of stubble and a full-bodied twitch.

I sat there and listened with a large degree of doubt as the man who greeted us – the one I assumed to be the organiser of this group – started speaking to everyone. He told us all that he had been born in twenty-one, eighty-six and that he'd come into contact with a celebi when he was sixteen. Apparently it warped him to the future and left him in the middle of the Ilex Forest in Johto. Supposedly a man found him and helped him adjust to the world. Though there was nothing about the man ever being in contact with the celebi, or even the stupid time-pixie appearing and telling the organiser everything he needed to know. Yet he told us that he was convinced he had a purpose in the new time; he just hadn't found it yet.

I bit back a sigh as I thought about it all. It meant that he didn't know anything that could help me either. I wanted to give up then and there; just walk out and leave them all behind, but the trilby-woman's words caught my attention.

"I came from eighty years from now," she rasped in a put-on voice. I felt my eyes widen and I leant forwards eagerly, my heart pounding away in my chest. Where she said she'd come from was the exact same as me! We could have known each other! We could have been taken for the same purpose! She could have been the help I had wanted for ages!

My heart was racing in my chest, my breath hanging on her next words.

She looked up at us all, though I frowned a little when I didn't recognise her. I knew it didn't mean much though – it wasn't like I knew everyone in my world after all.

She took a breath and I felt my nerves dance in my body. "Eighty years from now, I found a celebi. It took me back year in order to stop my future from happening."

It was identical to mine! She had to know about our future! She had to have experienced everything that I had; the fear, the hatred, the paranoia... everything!

"I don't want to go back there," she hissed as she pulled her hat back over her eyes. "The Birds of Myth have all destroyed Kanto. The Beasts of Myth have all ravaged Johto. Sinnoh's fallen apart and Hoenn's destroyed."

My heart sank. She was lying. _Lying!_ Hoenn was still standing in that time – I was damn well from it! I glared at her and caught the signs of a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. My one chance for finding someone else from my time had been crushed! I felt betrayed and humiliated.

More than that, disappointed that people could manage to lie about something like that.

I got up and made some flimsy excuse before I stormed out of the place. It couldn't have been just a coincidence that she would pick eighty years out of every damn number she could have chosen! She could have picked seventy-nine or eighty-one and it wouldn't have been such a punch in the gut to me!

My teeth scraped over each other as my hands balled into fists in my pockets. I knew that really I should have expected it to be true. I should have known that there was every chance she was lying. But I let myself believe her, only to be let down.

I sighed and rubbed my eyelids. It was just showing me more and more that I couldn't trust other people.

There was a shuffling sound behind me. I leapt at the sound of the noise and spun round, hand flying to my knife, only to find myself facing the strange twitchy-man from inside the hall.

He smiled at me and I kept my hand hovering above my weapon, just in case. He tapped the side of his head, laughed slightly and then twitched once more, his head almost hitting his left shoulder.

"I know you," he said as he tapped his fingertips together. "Or more accurately; know _of_ you. Heard many stories. Yes I have! Many things! Know it all! Yes! Yes I do!"

He twitched again and I gave him a small smile as I started to back again. "That's great pal," I told him, uncertainly. "But I'm afraid you've got the wrong person."

"Do I?" he asked with another twitch. "Maybe I do. But I know I don't. No, you are who I need to speak with. I know this! It makes me wonder; do I say this because I think, or because I know?" He twitched again and pulled his shoulders up to the bottom of his head. "Maybe. Possibly. Not important! My name. Nathan. Maybe important. Maybe not. But I know things!" He tapped the side of his head and twitched again. "I _know!_ Many things! Trust! Calm! Acceptance! _Learn_!"

"That's... good," I told him as I tried to escape him once more. I made it two steps before I tried to grab my poké balls with my free hand.

"_Beware!"_ he shouted all of a sudden as he threw his hands up. I stopped moving and watched the man instead. He twitched again and pulled his shoulders up again as he glanced fearfully around everywhere. "Beware the forests! When you complete! Avoid the trees! They its home! Hide! Avoid! Bigger problems will come! Week! Maybe two! Then they quit! You safe!"

He screamed and made me jump too. He threw his hands above his head and looked around the area suspiciously, like everything around us was hiding something that may kill him.

"They come!" he screamed and curled into a ball. "Darkness! Pokémon! They help! Hide! Beware the tree song! It kills!"

I backed away completely from him as he screamed and ran off into the distance. His words bounced around in my brain and I stared across the road and into the park. The trees were all rustling, leaves blowing in the wind...

... except there wasn't even the slightest breeze.

I shuddered and rubbed my suddenly cold arms. It all seemed so strange and unreal. I couldn't tell whether or not the strange man was telling the truth, but I knew I didn't want to stay around any longer.

I turned away from the place and made my way back towards the pokémon centre as quickly as I could. Along the way I let out Loki and placed him on my shoulder, which made him throw his arms back and laugh gleefully.

"You're insane, you know that?" I told him with a laugh. He reached up and made a show of catching as much falling ash as he could in his hands, happily growling all the while. Finally he threw his head back and opened his mouth wide, stuck his tongue out and began to catch falling ash on that instead.

I turned my head a little so I was looking straight at him. "That _can't_ taste nice." I held out a hand and watched as ash flakes dropped delicately on it, only to turn into large black smears when I brushed them off. "I could understand if you were a fiery pokémon like Scar, but you're a little insane ghost of darkness. You should like shadows, not the burnt remains of who knows what."

He cocked his head to the side and grunted at me once. He managed a raspy laugh before he turned his head around, pressed his ears flat against his skull and hissed.

"What?" I asked as I spun around to find the trilby-woman stood before me. "Oh," I grunted, unimpressed. "You. What're you doing here? Did you follow me?"

Her hat hid her face completely from me. "Yes."

I felt one of my eyebrows rise at that. One minute she was a liar, the next she was honest? It didn't make sense.

She lifted her gaze up to me and I saw that she wasn't actually as old as I had previously thought – in fact she seemed younger than me. Her hair was a dark brown; she had dark green eyes and a small purple piercing on her bottom lip. She wore a black hooded jacket and skinny denim jeans that both seemed to be remarkably clean. She also had on a pair of fashionable purple skinny shoes that were remarkably intact.

She didn't look like a trainer, I could tell that much.

"You stormed out of that hall pretty fast," she stated. I couldn't place her accent, yet her voice was quite harsh; like she had experienced something that made her mature fast, rather like me.

She placed a hand on a hip and lifted an eyebrow. "Something I said screw with your brain? You're the only one that seemed to be really listening to me back there."

I folded my arms and met her with a harsh glower. "I would have stuck around, but I tend to get bored when people are lying for attention."

She laughed a little at that. "_I'm_ a liar huh? And how would you know if I'm lying or not?"

That caught me out a little. It was true; I could only know if she was lying if I knew what the truth was. I figured that if she was lying, it wouldn't matter if she knew my true story or not. Even if I did tell her, I could just later change tune and tell her I was lying instead – it wasn't like either of us had proof either way.

"Because _I'm_ from eighty years in the future," I snarled at her. "Hoenn's still standing. Kanto and Johto have declared war on each other. They've nearly blown each other off the earth, but they're still there. No legendary beasts. Just a few armies and governments that have got a bit too power hungry."

She folded her arms and stared up at me. "Liar," she accused. "Pretty story, but not good enough to pass for truth."

"And _yours_ is?" I shot back. "Legendary pokémon destroying the lands? Surely you've got more of an imagination than that?"

"Says the guy who's a _pokémon_ trainer?" she hissed. "If you were really from the future, you'd know how bad they are! The Birds of Myth corrupted them all! You're just a little pokémon trainer who thinks he can trick a few people into thinking what he wants!"

"And you're just an attention seeking little girl who wants all eyes on her because her parents never paid any attention to her!" I growled. Loki hissed almost as if to add threat to my statement.

She flinched but covered it up quickly with another glare. "You know what; think what you like. I don't care if you think I'm a liar. I _am_ a liar. But you know what I'm not? An idiot. You're stood there lecturing me about everything, which makes me jump to only one logical conclusion; you must know something if you're so adamant I'm lying."

I waved my hands sarcastically, although inside fear and alarm was bubbling through my veins. "Oh no! My plans for confusing the masses with stories about the future foiled by some little sixteen year old girl!" I snorted and folded my arms again. "Get real, girly. I'm a liar too. I'm just so good at it that no one really knows what truth is anymore."

That much was true, even if I didn't like to admit it. I'd spouted so many lies since I'd gotten to the new (granted, old for me) Hoenn that I'd probably started believing a few of them myself.

"But you know what?" I added with a sneer as I patted Loki on the head. "At least I don't lie to get all the attention in the room. I do so because otherwise people can get hurt."

She rolled her eyes at me and pulled her hat back over her face a little. "Aren't you the big, precious, selfless hero? Should I bow down before you? Spread my legs and welcome you in because of your heroic deeds?" She laughed a scornful, spiteful note before she glowered at me again. "So if you're so heroic and from the future, why aren't you questing to save it?"

"I'm no one's pawn," I snarled at her. "I could say the same for you; you claimed to hate where you were from, yet I don't see you doing anything to help."

She shrugged, anger fading from her face a little. "I got out. That's all I wanted. Why should I care about any other fucker left back there? They're not even _born_ yet. I can enjoy the life I've got here and I don't ever need to worry about anyone back there. _You_ on the other hand," she said as she raked her eyes up and down me, scorn pouring out of them. "You look and act like a soldier, which makes me think you might have been one once. You can't let go of the past and that's why you're jealous of me; what I said earlier may have been only lies, everything I'm saying now could be just lies, but I know who I am and I'm enjoying my life here. You're just jealous and want that for yourself!"

I flinched at her words, surprised by how true they were. I really did want nothing more than to have the celebi's burden draped over my shoulders. Every time I tried to convince myself I didn't care, something else just managed to drag me straight back to trying to help. It might have been Adryan, a few psychics, maybe even seeing how beautiful the world was before it was ravaged, or even some flimsy little flier advertising a help group, but something always managed to stab me straight in the heart and remind me of everything.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and looked down at the floor, defeated. "So what did you follow me for?" I asked her, my voice emotionless.

I saw her shrug. "I wanted to see why you ran out," she said, unimpressed. "You're... not what I was expecting. You accuse me of lying, but how am I meant to know you're not? For all I know you could be deluded – you could have created yourself a nice little illusionary background after being mind-fucked by a psychic."

I snorted at that. "I wish it were all that easy."

She tucked a fist underneath her chin and stared at me for a moment. "You're not telling me everything." She took a step closer to me and prodded me on the shoulder.

"Neither are you," I shot back with a scowl, some of my anger returning. Who was she, really, to come and accuse me of being deluded, secretive and full of lies when she'd made up stories about the future just for a little attention?

"You really expect me to tell you everything?" I laughed at the foolish notion of it all, pulled my hands out of my pockets and folded my arms again. "I don't have anything to tell you."

She smirked impishly, taking the edge away from her palpable anger. "I could always torture it out of you... I'm sure there's a lot of ways I could make you confess all. I'll have you screaming and crying all through the night, trust me." She inched closer again and winked at me, though her eyes were cold and set like stone.

Devilish amusement trickled in through the cracks of my anger. "If anyone's going to be up all night screaming, it's going to be you. And I don't need to torture you to make you scream during the night."

She snorted. "I highly doubt that. You look like you wouldn't be able to perform that style of interrogation with directions and a compass!"

I held up a hand to quiet Loki as he hissed at her once more. "Well you're never going to find out my interrogation skills, so there's nothing you can do but fantasise." I smirked at her, sensing victory.

Then, to my surprise, she flung her arms around my neck and kissed me, full on. I felt her flinch as Loki bit her arm, yet couldn't find the will to force her off me. It wasn't every day I managed to have angry-make-out sessions, after all.

She pulled herself away from me, touched her wounded arm gently and closed her hand around it, blood trickling out from beneath.

"That was hardly even worth it," she hissed before she turned around and stalked away, leaving me confused and with Loki grinning toothily on my shoulder, displaying bloody fangs for the world to see.

Her insult didn't even register as I took a step after her. "Hey!" I shouted at her back. "What's your name?"

She ignored me completely as she continued walking, disappearing quite quickly round a corner and leaving me stood there foolishly, Loki still chattering away on my shoulder.

"Loki," I said uncertainly as I turned around and begun walking back to the pokémon centre. "If I let her tie me up and do things to me, you'll make sure to cut the ropes if she leaves me, won't you?"

He grunted to himself as he wiped his tongue along his teeth, caressing them each and turn and teasing the blood off them. I sighed and shook my head to myself, wondering just how I managed to get myself into such strange situations.

A giddy little smile worked its way onto my face as I touched my lightly bruised lips with my tongue. It really was a pity that I didn't know her name. It wasn't like I was ever going to see her again anyway, or so I told myself.

Damned trilby-hat-girl. I should have sat down and talked to her instead of getting angry and screaming at her in the street.

Things might have worked out a little differently that way.


	36. The Price of Lying

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Price of Lies

* * *

**

_Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be_ ~ Ayn Rand

**-O-O-O-**

"_The world will fuck us over. Without question."_

- Malic DeePress. Pessimist. Realist. Suicide victim. _(October 9__th__, 2234)_

**-O-O-O-**

When I was little, I used to think that the rain was actually the sky crying. I used to count the rain drops that splashed against my window – one tear for every person who had died since the last rainfall.

Thunder and lightning meant that they'd died before they were meant to.

I sat there that morning, the day after visiting the time traveller's group and counted the raindrops as they fell against my window, glowing pink as the sun rose in the sky.

Eventually they all blurred into one large film of water, covering the entirety of the glass. I stared a little while and wondered just what that could mean before I smiled to myself and dismissed it all as the idealistic dreams of a child.

I pushed myself away from the window and got dressed before I headed out of the pokémon centre and onto the slightly deserted streets. Even with a hood thrown over my head and waterproof clothes, I was still soaked in seconds. Rain poured out from the sky, fell over the sides of houses and dribbled out from puddles on the floor.

I blew uselessly at my hair when it fell in my eyes as I let Xander out of his poké ball. He croaked once before he stretched and rolled his eyes around in their sockets, surveying the watery scene before him.

"Thought you'd like it," I told him as I stuffed my hands in my pockets. "I figured we could do a bit more training today – save going to the gym for a little bit longer. I know they can be used as a measure of strength, but I want us to be strong enough to defeat their strongest teams easily, not just struggling against those at our level, as we have been."

He chirped and bounced forwards, knowing the way to where we'd been training. I smiled again as I followed slowly after him, splashing water with every step I took. I rubbed my tongue against my teeth with a frown, confused by the slightly strange feeling it held. It felt like I'd been up all night eating peanut butter and sandpaper, like I needed a drink and a painkiller all at once.

"I hope I haven't caught anything," I muttered as I pressed a hand to my lips. Xander croaked and looked back to me, though a quick shake of my head made him keep bouncing along. "Stupid trilby-girl," I growled as I punched my hand back into my jacket pocket.

Speaking about her made me remember her face; the way her smile looked kind of cute with the lip ring adding to it; that mischievous, angry sparkle that was in her eyes... the feeling of her tongue piercing...

I shook my head with a growl of a yelp. It wouldn't do me any good to think about her, I knew. Instead I tried to think about what I could do with Xander to train him – if the pokémon battling business never worked out, I figured he could always get work as a psychiatrist; he did spend most of the time listening to my problems, after all.

I'd decided that as part of our training, I needed to focus on each of my pokémon individually, as well as giving them the drills I ran them through. As well as that, getting them to train against each other. I'd overheard a few of the other trainers in the pokémon centre talking about their training methods and elected to compliment them into my own plans. You could always learn from other people, after all. I just so happened to rarely talk to other people and instead eavesdropped on everything instead.

There were also the small things I'd heard about the real world events, which was starting to make me again realise how little I paid attention to the news, or anything like that.

Apparently the strange sort of virus that had plagued Oldale and Petalburg both had now spread past Littleroot and Rustboro, and was now moving onto the towns south and east of them, respectively. Supposedly the Pathornogix group was helping out in both towns – making it six out of six locations they'd helped out in. If they weren't a charity group, I would have suspected something then.

I thought back to the strange man on the boat to Slateport and remembered what I'd overheard, as well as what I'd understood. He was with a company that were releasing chemicals into towns, yet didn't want anyone to die. I had to figure out where he worked, yet had nothing to go on. In a way, it pissed me off a little that I couldn't have been like the person in the heroic films or books, where when they figured they had a clue, they had the contacts or the skills to track down one unknown person in a whole country.

I caught myself and smacked the side of my head, reminding myself that I didn't care what happened. The world could perish, as long as I didn't have to vanish in order for it to stay alive.

Xander's chirp dragged me from my thoughts and into my surroundings; a grim, marsh-like area with twisted, gnarled trees and lightning illuminating the sky in random intervals.

"Aside from the mud, I like it better like this," I told Xander, who croaked a small agreement. "I always liked doing drills in the rain better too – I was pretty much the only one that did," I revealed, laughing to myself at the memory of it all. "The heat tends to drain you of energy, no matter what you do. When it's cold, you just don't want to move. Rain's the happy medium."

I knew that Xander agreed. Whenever it rained he looked healthier and seemed to have more energy about him, able to do things twice as fast as normal.

I turned away from my musings and wrung the sleeves of my jacket as I led him towards the network of caves that towered over us. Meteor Falls were well known in Hoenn for their frequent meteor showers, as well as being a network of caves and mountainous climes that somehow produced a large amount of the strange evolutionary stones. That was the next phase in my overall plan; money.

I needed lots of it.

Bribes weren't exactly the most definite ways of getting things done, but I knew that they were a great influence when pokémon battling just wouldn't cut it. It didn't matter how strong I got my pokémon – someone would always be stronger than us. A gun just wouldn't cut it against some people or their pokémon – some pokémon could move faster than the human eye, after all. It wouldn't do me much good to pull a gun on someone only to blink and find myself staring at my own headless body.

Certain things would require having 'friends' in high places. And I figured there could be no better and easier way to get friends by having enough cash to give out a few back-handers. The more favours I made sure I was owed, the better I could exploit people to help me. The better I could exploit people, the more I could find out about the world and the more hands I could have changing things.

I smacked myself in the head for the second time that day. I _wasn't_ going to need any of that, I told myself. I wasn't going to go saving the world, because I'd just disappear into some stupid portal or something – whatever the explanation was, I'd end up just not existing.

The strange twitchy-man's words came back to me as I looked around the bleached-white rocks that made up a lot of the area. Trees were growing in large plains all around the mountain, swaying in the harsh winds of the storm and turning into eerie shadows with every flash of lightning.

The tree song supposedly had something to do with it all. At least, according to a man that obviously needed a straight jacket and a healthy dose of sedatives.

But I couldn't shake the memory that the trees had been rustling in the non-existent wind.

"C'mon Xand," I grunted as I rubbed my arms, taking the pathway up towards Meteor Falls. It was like a giant, white, rocky hill that led up to the main opening – a hastily-constructed doorframe of old, rotting wood supporting rocks that were obviously going to break through the frame soon enough.

"At least there's no shedinja this time," I murmured to myself as I rooted in my backpack for a torch. Since I'd lost my other one in the baltoy-infested tower back in the desert, I was reduced to using some cheap plastic torch that may as well have just contained a tiny little firefly, for all the good it did. The sickly-orange light bounced off a few rocks and brightened a tiny bit of the caves, allowing us enough light to see where we were walking.

"We're gonna stay in here for a few days," I said to my pokémon, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I figured that well, if we trained you guys in the dark for a little while, you'd start to hear and feel attacks coming, rather than relying on your eyesight and me giving pointers every time. I want you guys to be able to figure these things out on your own; the less input I need to give you in a battle, the better the trainer I am... I think.

"I checked the pokédex and that guide Jennifer gave me – I'm actually amazed that's still alive – and I've seen that there's a lot of strong pokémon that happen to live in here." I stopped as I pulled a little marker out of my bag, marked a tiny arrow on one of the rocks at a natural fork in the cave and took the left path, on a whim. "We should be able to handle ourselves; _you'll_ end up being able to take out most of the pokémon in here on your own... hopefully."

I flicked the light back to my pokémon and gave him a small grin. "Except for maybe Erra. But she needs to realise that she can't shy away from everything. I need to find some way of getting her to battle all the time... but I'm not going to kill myself to find that."

Xander croaked and flicked my jacket's left pocket with his tongue. He stared at me in the darkness a moment, grunted and then shifted his head towards the poké balls on my belt before I got the message.

I threw him a devious grin. "I know Alistair's with Chris for only two days. But if I'm far down in the caves and up high in the mountains, I can pretend that I was away from anywhere with signal for a while. Yet another benefit of lying so much," I said as I tapped the side of my head. "My mind somehow seems to dream up scenarios for me to exploit and lie my way into getting what I want, no matter what's happened." I threw my arms out to the side and spun half-circle in the darkness. "I don't really want to be around Alistair. He's far too honorific and _creepy_. I mean, I know you don't _completely_ agree with the fact that I let Loki, Lacey and Scar all go along maiming, killing and shredding people, but you _do_ condone it. I get the feeling Alistair would just take offense to it and be all '_off with your head!'"_ I made chopping motions at the base of my neck with a laugh, stopping only when Xander kept up an unimpressed silence.

"I can't wait until you're a ludicolo," I grunted at him as I flicked my light forwards and continued walking. "At least then you'd find that funny. Geez, some pokémon have no sense of humour." I shook my head to myself as I walked, only to realise exactly what I was saying a few paces later.

"Great," I groaned, hanging my head. "Now I'm going loopy trying to put humour into everything. I've been around Adryan way too much. I need to stop talking to him as frequently. Aside from the fact he could potentially main and kill _me_ if he finds out Lacey was behind the whole rapidash fiasco, I'm now trying to make light of every situation. I'm also talking _loudly_ to my pokémon in a cave, where I should really be silent and hope that I don't bump into anything ugly and nasty."

I stumbled and grabbed the wall to support myself as Xander bumped straight into my leg. My head snapped towards him in a glare, only for my eyebrows to reach my hairline when I saw the smug smirk he seemed to be wearing.

"Oh, _funny_ pokémon," I drawled, lowering my voice once more. "If you think I'm ugly and nasty, obviously you understand a lot more then you let on. Personally, I think that's a little unfair; they need to invent some sort of translation collar for you guys. I've got a sneaking suspicion you're a sarcastic little bastard – I can't help but want to find out how wrong or right I am."

He croaked once more, throat swelling up like a balloon before it deflated again. I snorted and waved my hand at him as I continued to walk. "I'm starting to think I won't need that after all. But like I was saying before I got distract; I don't really want Alistair coming back soon. I mean, if there was something you were afraid of, would you want it around all the time?"

I stopped at my own question and turned to my pokémon, one eyebrow raised. "Just what _are_ you afraid of anyway?"

He looked up at me, eyes blinking independently of each other before he sprung over my head and into the large lake behind me. I watched him swim around, tear apart and consume a young golden before I sighed to myself and sat down at the side of the cave-bound lake, wondering just how I managed to know so little about my starting pokémon.

* * *

It was rather strange that the next few days weren't in anyway incidental. I slowly adjusted back into the strange life of camping inside a cave – finding safe spots to sleep, leaving Lacey, Loki or Scar out to guard at night, hunting pokémon in the dark for food, trusting Xander to find sources of fresh water and possibly the hardest thing to adjust to – bathroom breaks in complete darkness.

I'd managed to get in a lot of training with Xander, Loki and Lacey within the first few days too. Loki had fallen into the habit of spooking everything in the caves – when he realised that _he_ would have to fight the creatures that he frightened, he seemed to do it even more and often ended up tearing apart some of the smaller, fleshier creatures. Aside from the one time he managed to piss off a garchomp – there's nothing more frightening than having a fast, running land-shark chasing you through a dark cave; it was just good fortune that its children began to cry and call it back – he seemed at home fighting the creatures in the dark – the fact that he could turn immaterial at any time in darkness helped out a lot too.

Then I'd tried training Lacey the next day. It was quite something to go from a nonchalant Xander, to a prank loving, terrorising, slightly psychotic Loki and then to the quiet and reserved Lacey, who had the habit of wandering off randomly during training to kill something when she was annoyed.

We ended up getting in a fight because of it. A fully physical, punch-throwing fight that I could have won – if she didn't fight dirty. I'm almost certain that she was trying to make sure I couldn't have kids. My face held a number of small cuts and scrapes, my arms had longer slashes across them that would scar, yet I'd managed to bruise her body and her ego – I even managed to break her nose with a good right hook.

Somehow after the fight, we ended up both laughing as we collapsed to the floor, beaten and in pain. I convinced her not to go off killing anything randomly anymore when she was annoyed; the original plan at first, after all, was for to only kill when she felt the need to. Instead she'd just started slaughtering indiscriminately and it was up to me to rein her back in. Getting her to agree to halt her activities while we were in Meteor Falls was only a small step towards finally holding complete control over her again.

We also agreed to have regular sparring sessions with each other – she was roughly my height and preferred fighting physically – since it managed to make us both improve. I wanted to do the same with Scar, but his rash, angry nature and hatred towards humans made me put that idea on hold until I knew he wasn't likely to fall into a fit of rage and wear my intestines as a headdress.

Training those three made me appreciate more the differences between my pokémon and the individual personalities and characters they had.

Then I had to train Erra.

We moved a little further into the caves, her flying close to me, creating enough of an electrical charge to light up the caves a little. She seemed to be a little more confident – the random zubat that flew past her didn't seem to bother her all that much – yet when there was a loud sound or a larger pokémon that came along, she'd panic, discharge all the electricity and cling to my shoulder or my head.

It was a good thing I'd thought ahead and was wearing rubber-lined gloves and boots; otherwise I would have been crispy-fried-soldier.

I watched her after one particularly large golbat had decided to try and eat us both whole. The bat had fled when Erra had panicked and shot electricity everywhere, yet the magnemite didn't seem to realise she could have taken the creature. She clicked wildly as she climbed along the surface of the cave walls, glowing again and lighting up the moss that clung to the white stones.

I blew out an annoyed breath at her and watched the way she flinched and dipped into a recess in the wall. Annoyance turned into curiosity as I repeated the motion, getting the same reaction. I scratched my head as I watched her, clogs slowly turning in my brain. I'd obviously been annoyed with her when Lacey had pounded her into the floor; my brain started to make the connection that maybe Erra thought I might get the nuzleaf to attack her again if she annoyed me to such a point for a second time.

About then I realised that my love for my more murderous, violent pokémon was probably detrimental to the way I saw my other pokémon.

I sighed to myself and held my arm out. "Erra, come here," I said as gently as I could. She clicked once more, blinked at me with her single eye and then managed to detach herself from the wall. She landed gently on my arm, crawled up a few steps and stared up at my face eagerly.

I grimaced as I thought to myself about what I could actually say to her. Absentmindedly I reached over and scratched the base of her head. "Look, Erra; I've tried a number of ways to get through to you. I'm starting to run out of ideas here. But... I think I'm starting to get a little of it – you think I don't have any confidence in you, don't you?"

Her wings began to beat erratically, sending waves of cool air over my arm. I smiled to myself and patted her back to calm her. "I might sometimes think you're not up to the task – I tend to think that about all of you sometimes; everyone has their limits after all. But you should use that to prove me wrong really. Regardless, I've told you before I'm not going to let Lacey put a beat-down on you like she did before. That means that no matter how I feel, I'm not going to start hitting you or whatever – I'd be pretty stupid to, seeing as you can electrocute me to death."

I laughed to myself and walked a few steps through the tunnels, splitting my attention between the path and my pokémon. "You're afraid. I get that. Everything feels fear. You think I don't shit myself in some of the situations I've come across? You'd be unnatural if you didn't feel fear." I stopped a moment and looked around, seeing a few tracks on the floor and the walls. "Thing is though, it's better to be afraid in a fight."

She clicked at me, obviously questioning what I was talking about. I smiled and patted her again. "When you're angry, you get pumped with adrenaline, but you tend to lose track of coherent thoughts. When you're afraid, you still get the adrenaline rush, but you're mostly thinking about fleeing. If you forget about fleeing, you can manage to think properly and use that rush to fight properly."

I smiled at her and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A small pokémon with a blue furred chest and arms, yet a white furred lower body. Its feet were furless, pink and webbed, a long, pink, wrinkle-skinned tail extended from its back into a bushy end and two wrinkled pink ears framed its face.

Its nose twitched, whiskers brushing over each other as it caught our scent. I saw it move and smiled once more at Erra. "Time you learn how to control that fear," I said and threw her at the azumarill.

Erra screeched at the surprise of it all, making the azumarill press its ears against its skull, arch its back and hiss wildly at the magnemite. The azumarill chattered wildly at its new foe and leapt at Erra, clamping down on her body and dragging her to the floor.

Erra shrieked and beat her wings heavily, creating harsh sounds that made the azumarill wail and lose hold on her, its ears pouring blood and staining the floor red. Sensing a moment to flee, Erra turned and tried to fly away. The azumarill hissed again and blew freezing mist over Erra, slowing her and covering her wings in ice.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Control your fear Erra!" I barked in a harsh whisper.

She clicked wildly as the azumarill launched upwards and smacked her in the stomach with a gut-busting punch. The magnemite flew erratically with the blow, discharging electricity wildly. The azumarill bounced away from the blasts, twirling expertly in the air before its fur-tipped tail smacked down on Erra hard and ploughed her into the floor.

Erra buzzed angrily and clamped her mandibles down on the tail, drawing blood as she gripped the rest of the tail with her legs. Her wings beat faster and faster as electricity poured out of her and into the azumarill, lighting the pokémon up and cooking it from the inside out.

The sick smell of over-cooked meat filled the tunnels as Erra pried herself from the dead azumarill and flew back to me. I grinned at her and folded my arms smugly.

"So now do you understand what I said?" I asked as I held out an arm for her to sit on. She clicked once as she landed softly on my arm, then bit hard onto the exposed flesh. I winced at the pain, though managed a small smile as she released her grip and looked back up at me, her eye sparkling with pride.

I felt like after everything, I'd finally got through to her a little.

* * *

Things seemed to be improving a little in my life, I felt. I'd managed to get Erra to understand the basics of being able to battle and even got her to begin battling on my command, instead of running off and hiding.

The next day I'd started training Scar too. Without a human in sight, he seemed happy enough to follow my orders in battle, even starting to listen to them when they weren't anything to do with killing, maiming or otherwise causing bodily harm on other creatures. I could ask him to collect something for me and he would; he was even beginning to light fires on my command – before then he'd usually breathed enough flame to set me ablaze too.

I'd tried explaining to him that humans weren't all bad and that he could trust them. He simply sneered at me, pointed to his two most prominent scars and then punted an innocent marill into the lake. Perhaps cruel, but I found that incident incredibly hilarious.

The next day I took to training Sophie. I couldn't figure out why she wasn't able to fly, yet it seemed she more than made up for it in her speed. I'd never thought skarmory could run that fast until I saw her running through the tunnels after her prey – I lost her a good few times, yet every time she and I were separated, she would always hop back to me after a few minutes, looking like the picture of innocence.

I smiled at her and patted her head as she crushed a marill under her foot and bit off its head. She ate noisily and I had the sneaking suspicion that it was probably stopping pokémon from trying to hunt us, rather than drawing them.

"At any other time, I think I would try and teach you manners," I whispered as I tapped my cheek with a finger. Sophie looked at me, twitched her head, blood trickling down her jaw before she squawked and tore off another piece of marill to eat.

"Who am I kidding?" I laughed to myself and surveyed the area quickly. "You probably eat with more manners than me." A grin took over my face as I looked back to her. "Though I wouldn't mind if you taught me just how to run as fast as that – possibly not in the same way that you taught that poor postman though."

I turned back to Sophie and watched her eat for a minute. Once she knew I was watching she spread her wings and cawed before she went back to eating again. I smiled and stuck one hand in a pocket as I cast torch-light through the tunnels. "I'm starting to get a little bit worried now Sophie," I said, waving for her to follow me as I started walking again.

Bone crunched in her beak and her feet scratched along the dirt floor behind me, providing an eerie background noise for me.

"I've been happy this past week – like really happy," I whispered. "That doesn't happen much to me; at least not without me getting a big cosmic slam of sadness. I've enjoyed myself since I started training you guys and I can't help but feel like something's going to bring me down."

Sophie cawed and nipped me on my shoulder. I yelped and slapped my hand over the fresh bruise, glaring daggers at the bird. "Maybe I _am_ working myself up about it all," I said as I rubbed my shoulder. "But attacking your trainer isn't the nicest way to get him to snap out of his misery. You've been taking lessons from the more evil members of our team, haven't you? I'm going to end up abused by all of you."

Sophie chirped; her neck twitching as she regarded me curiously. Finally she picked up the remains of her marill from the floor, hopped forwards and nudged against my chest, dropping the bloody pulp into my hands.

I pinched a corner of it, held it up in the air with a grimace and looked helplessly at Sophie. "Err... thanks. I think."

She bounced up on the spot, fluttered her wings and chirped happily. I shook my head to myself and thought of a way to dispose the mangled marill without offending my pokémon. With the speed she could run at, the last thing I wanted to do was piss her off.

* * *

It took me only a few more days to leave Meteor Falls and head back to Fallarbor. Dawn was breaking at what seemed miles below me as I trekked back down towards the town.

I stared at my phone and saw the number of texts and missed calls from Chris. Finally I managed to swallow the guilt and fear – mostly fear – before I rang her and found out that Alistair hadn't taken to her mismagius – instead apparently he had lectured the pokémon on the proper rules of courtship and then hexed into behaving like a four year old human for all his troubles.

The mental imagery of that alone was enough to stop me from really listening to Chris' accusations of me taking advantage of her. I managed to calm her by telling her that I'd got lost exploring around Meteor Falls and that I'd only just managed to find my way back to the surface. Instantly she became guilty for screaming at me and began apologising and telling me to just pick him up when I could.

I smirked to myself at the wonders of lying. I thanked her and promised her I'd pay her for all the costs of looking after him before I snapped my phone shut and stuck my hands behind my head, staring up at the early-morning sky. I'd managed to get rid of the gallade for a week, yet I needed another way to pawn him off on someone.

There was always the lab at Birch's, but something Alistair had said to me really unnerved me towards that. The whole thought of him believing fate would make sure we came back together wasn't something I really wanted to entertain. Between him and the crazy twitchy-man's beliefs of the trees coming to life and attacking people, my spine crawled with uncertainty.

I pushed those thoughts away and tried to think about something else. I remembered the trilby-girl again; I'd met her on the same day as the crazy twitcher. She might have been lying about her supposed time travel, for whatever reasons, but a grin crawled on my face all the same at the memory of her. I let my mind drift, wondering just where she was, what she was doing and what her name could have possibly been.

It took me smacking the side of my head again to realise that I probably wasn't going to see her again. My phone buzzed in my pocket and for one stupid, silly moment I thought it was the girl on my mind, that somehow she'd found my number and decided to get in touch.

Realism set in when I opened the text and found instead it was just Mia. A flash of guilt set in, fighting away my disappointment that it was only her and not someone else. Though that was quickly replaced with a small degree of excitement when I saw that Mia had arrived in Fallarbor.

It took roughly an hour for me to get back into town and to the pokémon centre. Almost as soon as I'd handed my pokémon over to the nurse working reception, Mia happened to appear behind me and jab me in the ribs.

The shriek I made wasn't very manly at all.

She laughed at me so hard her cheeks turned a shade of red her hair would have been jealous of. "You never fail to make me laugh," she said once she finally caught her breath. "Maybe one of these days you'll actually mean to?"

I stuffed my hands into my cargo pockets and smiled at her. "Maybe so. But at least I'm not the one who happens to get verbal diarrhoea when I've had two drinks."

Instantly the colour rose in her cheeks once more and a strangled groan came out of her mouth. Finally she slid her fingers under her glasses, rubbed her eyelids and managed to snort an embarrassed laugh. "Please, just never let me drink anymore. I _shouldn't_ drink – I've never been able to handle it! I run the risk on getting drunk from chocolate liqueurs! And this time I managed to lose almost all my socks!"

My laugh came out as a badly concealing cough into my fist. She looked so confused by it all that I couldn't help but burst into full fits of laughter at it all, effectively confessing my crimes wordlessly to her.

"I knew it was you!" she shrieked as she slapped the back of my head. "What kind of pervert are you? Stealing a woman's socks?" She smiled at me and shook her head in amusement. "If you were nothing but a pervert, I'd be celebrated for giving you a circumcision with a can opener."

My laughter died quickly at that, replaced with only a horrified shudder. She laughed again and plucked her glasses from her face, cleaning them with her purple jacket. "Instead I'll just have to settle for carrying on this strange stealing game of ours."

I shrugged. "Well in that case, I want to steal your shower for a little bit. I smell."

She raised an eyebrow at me as she put her glasses back on. "And why would I want to do that?"

"Because otherwise I'll torment you endlessly about you making drunken come-ons towards me."

She groaned and found her keys quickly. "This is the _only_ time you get to use that excuse! Try it again and I will pull out your tongue with chopsticks!"

I just laughed, used to her insane threats. After I'd managed to use her shower and get dressed, she lead me straight back out of her room, demanding that we both go get something to eat. Apparently her pokémon were busy being healed, as were mine and we couldn't think of anything else to start our day with.

There was also the fact that she said she didn't want to keep me in her room for too long. Apparently I would have been a nosy cretin and rooted around in her underwear drawer for kicks and giggles. When I told her I didn't want to see what she could possibly have to hide in her underwear drawer, she kicked me in the shin, called me a pervert and then in front of everyone in the pokémon centre; pretended that I was her boyfriend and that she'd just caught me dancing around her room in her underwear.

When I finally caught up with her, just down the road from the pokémon centre, I was still a little gobsmacked and in awe of her acting abilities.

"You're actually evil, you know this?" I growled, cuffing her on her shoulder.

She just grinned and hooked her thumbs into her belt. "Hey, the best way to get back at someone is usually in a sly, exploitative way. Public humiliation's not exactly the most soul-destroying way, but your crimes were only small."

I stuffed my hands back into my pockets and bumped her with my hip. "What crimes? All I did was insult you a little!"

"Maybe," she conceded, rolling her head from side to side. "But you shouldn't start insulting people and expect no retaliation. My methods tend to be a little more... inventive that other people's."

I snorted and nodded for us to cross the road. "So this is the sort of thing that you're proud you've accomplished when you go to sleep at night?"

"Insulting my friends and generally making them realise I'm not some defenceless little girl?" She laughed. "Pretty much." Her laughter died off pretty quickly after that as she stared off to the side, admiring a few shop displays before she turned her gaze back to me again.

"How much did I say the last time we met?" she asked, her voice soft and cautious, completely unlike the Mia I knew.

I stared at her, confused by the sudden change in her attitude and momentarily taken aback. "A little," I said as vaguely as possible, trying to preserve her dignity. "There was a lot about you hoping that me and Adryan were lovers and you wanted to watch us go at it like bunnies."

She snorted and coughed at once, choking herself and descending into a coughing fit for a few minutes. When it finally passed her eyes were streaming and bright red, as were her cheeks, though a wide smile was on her face. "Yet another reason why I shouldn't drink; I become a fangirl obsessed with man-love." She took a slow breath and looked back up at me. "Anything else as embarrassing as that?"

I gave her a flat look. "You told me that wine makes your clothes fall off. I was actually frightened that you would strip completely and present yourself to me if I turned my back on you."

She slapped me again on the arm for the veiled insult as my mouth twisted into a grin. "There was a little you tried telling me though," I told her, unsure about how to progress with the particular line of conversation. "You mentioned something about having an espeon, then something about the Seafoam Islands, but I stopped you before you could prattle on about it."

Her mouth dropped open ever so slightly. Finally she seemed to come together, nodded a fraction and then pointed for us to go sit outside in a small little cafe nestled between two expensive-looking clothes shops. The entire time until we ordered our food she was silent, creating an uneasy air of awkwardness around us that I just couldn't seem to break.

Finally when the waitress delivered our drinks and walked off, Mia managed to break it all with a small, simple, "Sorry."

I shrugged and blew at my coffee. "Nothing to apologise for," I said reflexively. "You've been thinking. Can't blame you for doing that."

She shook her head as she stirred her milkshake with a straw. "Not for that. For just dropping into myself and moping about having loose lips while I'm drunk."

I couldn't help myself. "If you did have loose lips when you were drunk-"

"I have a selection of cutlery right in front of me, remember?" she interrupted quickly. My grin died as I cleared my throat and adopted a much more serious persona for her conversation. "I just didn't think I would start talking about _that_. It happened ages ago, but I guess it's pretty much shaped everything right now."

I scratched the side of my head with my fork. "You do realise I have no idea what you're talking about, right?"

She nodded solemnly. "I lied to you when I first met you. I didn't really spend two years in Johto; I only spent a year. After that... well, I went to the Seafoam Islands in Kanto for... well for silly reasons really," she said as she pulled tiny little pieces off her napkin.

I nodded quietly and gave her a small smile. "If you don't want to talk about this-"

"No, I should tell you," she said quickly, shaking her head. "You see, my dad works for one of the big newspaper companies in Kanto; he managed to get pretty famous in the photographic community because he managed to get a clear photo of The Articuno when it was flying above Sinnoh a few years ago. He always talked about how brilliant the photo was, but he said that the newspaper company had taken his one and only copy of it. He always said that the picture was beautiful; that the copies the newspapers made and the way they edited it never truly did it justice.

"So of course, me being the head-strong, stubborn seventeen year old that I was then decided that I would find The Articuno and take a picture of it, all for my dad's fiftieth birthday." She shook her head to herself and laughed scornfully. "Mum went mad when she got wind of my plans and forbid me from going anywhere near Seafoam, which of course made me want to go even more. I only had six pokémon then; some had died, others had run away, one or two I even released or gave to other people. Charles, Sunni, Julia, Shale, Edward and Percy – the stantler you've met, an espeon, gloom, graveller, seel and a pidgeotto."

She sighed to herself and scrunched the napkin up in her hands. "We didn't even last two weeks in there. It's just so _cold_ in those caves and I was anything but prepared. Julia – my gloom – became so cold that eventually her leaves frosted over and her entire system shut down. She was the first to go in there. Shale – graveller – she was too heavy for some of the ice, fell straight through and into the water below. I sent in Edward – my seel to rescue her, but he wasn't strong enough to pull her out. Instead, she crushed him, pushed them both down to the bottom of the water where they both drowned – hell of a time to discover that seel are actually mammals." She laughed bitterly and grabbed the edge of the table in a vice-like death grip.

"That was far too much. I knew I had to get out of there, but of course, I managed to get myself completely lost. Percy – my pidgeotto – and Sunni – the espeon – both got frozen in a big block of ice by a pilowsine. I managed to defrost Sunni, but the piloswine crushed Percy before I could free him. He ended up as bits of chunky slush." She stopped talking a moment as her food and mine were delivered onto our table. Once she'd thanked the waitress and was sure she was out of earshot, she began to push her sausages around her plate with her fork.

"Sunni helped us to find the way out of the caves. Charles got attacked by a feraligatr that was hiding in the water; I only just managed to call him back into his poké ball before the big croc bit him in two. But I couldn't use him after that – both his front legs had been broken. When we finally reached the exit, Sunni collapsed there on the spot and I realised a little too late that he had frostbite – the cold had set completely into his body and stopped his heart just before we got out." She sighed and reached for the sauce, shaking her head to herself. "Five of my pokémon dead, all for a little birthday present for my dad.

"Charles was in the hospital for a month after that, and everyone I knew kept telling me how sorry they were for everything." She gave up with her food and buried one hand in her hair. "But after that... they just seemed to stop caring. I was bitter, resentful to everything and everyone because of it; I'd spent three years with those pokémon, bonding with them and loving them with all my heart. Then in two weeks, five of them managed to die through my stupidity. I started lashing out at people, angry at everyone.

"You ever hear that saying that true friends care enough to knock down the walls you build around yourself?" she asked suddenly, pointing at me with a fork. "That's what I heard when I was grieving. My anger made me lash out at people, threatening them indiscriminately. Most people wall themselves off by stopping themselves from talking to everyone, becoming secluded. Instead I chased them off in some silly delusion that if they were true friends, they'd be able to see past that."

She shrugged to herself, dabbed the corners of her eyes with her napkins and sighed, placing her hands back on the table. "I became a lot colder through all those ordeals, ironically enough. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me anymore. I don't want to be the girl everyone looks at and feels sorry for because something bad happened to her. I want people to know and like me for who I am – for my own idiotic background and sob-story to never come into the mix. All my old friends were only able to see my ordeals in Seafoam after that – only my parents were able to see past that. The random crazy insults are just a way to remind people that I'm not defenceless and that I don't want pity."

I nodded and reached over the table, grabbing one of her hands. "Well you're not going to get it from me. Anyone that makes multiple threats to my manhood, as well as someone that can kick as hard as you doesn't get pity. You're still the same insane woman I've known all along, regardless of what's happened." I smiled at her, small and sheepish. "Just, when I get round to telling you my own twisted, horrific past, treat me the same way?"

She smirked and pulled her hand away from me. "As an incompetent boob, over-confident in his abilities with the ladies and with a mind too filthy even for the sewers?"

I laughed and winked as I dove into my food. "Yup, pretty much. Except I wouldn't say I'm overconfident at all."

She grinned. "Deluded too. Thanks though," she said, her voice softening. "You're the first person I've met since then who actually didn't run away screaming when I started insulting them. It's nice to know I've got at least one friend who doesn't treat me based one what's happened to me. Just... try to ignore what I said when I was drunk, okay? Drunken come-ons or not, I do like you, just not in that way."

I managed a smile at that. "Before you start insulting my appearance, I know what you mean. Though Adryan's convinced we're made for each other and we're due to start making little ginger soldiers soon enough."

Despite obviously trying not to, Mia still ended up pulling a face at that. Even when she wasn't speaking, she still could insult me.

* * *

It was a little bit after twelve-hundred hours that both Mia and my pokémon were all healed and ready to go once more. On the way she'd forced me to buy balloons of all things – apparently they were good targets to train pokémon to launch attacks into the air. She also told me that her aron had evolved into a lairon in the time I hadn't seen her, however, she hadn't managed to beat the gym in Sandstream, though she did manage to get Mauville's gym badge for her collection.

"You're an idiot," she told me after I explained my reasons for not attempting the gym there. "It doesn't matter who you beat at the end of the day, as long as you get the badge to prove you won."

I shrugged and followed her aimlessly down the road. "Maybe, but aren't there people out there who look down on you if you don't have a badge from beating the gym leader themselves?"

She snorted and waved a hand at me. "You need to grow up a little, Mr. Soldier. Who cares what other people think about you? All that really matters is how you see yourself. If you like who you are, fuck everyone else who doesn't like you."

I nodded and decided I probably could have done with that advice _before_ I fought the gym. Instead I just grasped one of the poké balls on my bandolier, silently considering a few options.

"Hey Mia," I said abruptly, bringing her to a complete stop. "We need to train our pokémon a little – I was hoping I could get you to help me with something."

She blinked, curious at first, then apprehensively. "Okay... I'm sure I'm not going to like this, but what do I need to do?"

I pulled at my collar. "Well, you might want one of your pokémon out for this. But basically, I need my charmeleon to start adjusting to other people. He seemed fine enough with Adryan – though I think that might have been because Scar saw how many powerful pokémon Adryan had that were able to tear him to pieces, should he attack. But every time Scar's seen another trainer, he tends to try and rip them to shreds."

Mia raised an eyebrow at me, hands on her hips. "So you want me to stand here like a target, let you release your charmeleon and hope that my pokémon will be able to stop him from ripping me limb from limb?"

I winced. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"Sure!"

I did a double-take at that. "'Sure'?"

She nodded, grunting affirmation. "Course. You'd help me out if I needed it and there's no point in living a boring, thrill-less life. You do sometimes need a good scare or something that gets your adrenaline going." She held up a hand quickly. "And if you make any sort of comment to that, I _will_ dropkick you from here to Sinnoh."

I chuckled nervously as I stepped a few paces away from her and snatched Scar's poké ball from the holder. Charles appeared in a flash of light next to Mia, ears flicking against his head as he listened to Mia. Once she'd explained everything, she waved and gave me a thumbs-up before I released Scar in a flash of light.

He came into focus looking curiously at me. Suddenly his snout snapped upwards, sniffing at something in the air. He craned his head towards Mia and a deep, feral growl erupted in his throat at the sight of her. He snarled and I leapt at him just as he started to move. I clung to his neck as tightly as I could, screaming at him to stop and pulling back with all my weight as he tried to charge her. He stopped so abruptly that I couldn't stop myself pulling back in time and ended up dragging us both down to the floor.

He snarled again and swiped me on the side. I hissed through gritted teeth at him as I struggled to stand up whilst still trying to keep hold of him. "Don't attack other trainers!" I growled at him, squeezing his neck for good measure. "Only attack the ones that I let you, okay?" I whispered into the small holes on the side of his head that served as ears. "Not everyone's going to try and hurt you, okay?"

He snorted a black, sulphurous breath, making me cough and splutter as it entered my lungs. As soon as I let go he roared and tried to hunt down Mia again. I leapt after him again and grabbed a hold of the horn atop his head, jerking it towards me and pulling back with most of my strength. "If you're not going to listen to me Scar, I will kick you in your hip," I said, my voice deathly calm. "You might have the cast and bandages off, but it will still hurt like hell." Flames licked out from his teeth and I jerked his head in the other direction, making him yelp in pain and surprise. "I don't care if you can barbecue me without much thought. You listen to me." I lowered my head next to his and growled into his ear. "I let you hunt down that man who used to own Alistair, didn't I? I let you shred up that man that Adryan killed. I feed you, I look after you and I point out the ways you can beat your opponents easily, even if you don't always win. So when I tell you that you don't go around attacking other people, you don't go attacking other people, all right?"

He hissed at me and finally settled into a low growl as I gripped his horn harder. Finally he grunted and relaxed completely, fire dying from his mouth and tail-flame burning with considerably less vigour.

"Good boy," I growled as I threw his head away. He caught his balance and snarled at me again, standing still with palpable reluctance. Once I was sure that he wasn't about to start attacking people randomly, I waved Mia over and watched his reactions.

Distrust and hate were the main things I saw, but no bloodlust or malicious intent. I understood that he only really attacked humans through self-preservation, a kill-first; ask questions later interpretation towards survival of the fittest.

"Good boy," I said again as he stood resolutely still when Mia reached my side. He leant forwards slowly, sniffed at her before he growled again and turned away, swiping at us both with his tail. Charles barked offence and growled lowly at Scar, no doubt telling him exactly what he had coming. Scar watched the stantler with something like amusement before finally he snorted and sat on the floor, almost as if to state that he wasn't going to go about attacking anyone.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "You know, before I caught him, I used to think getting a strong pokémon would be brilliant. Now I've got him, I'm starting to realise that maybe it would have been easier had I caught something simple, like a rattata."

Mia laughed as she threw an arm around her stantler's neck, scratching lightly at his fur. "I wouldn't advise that. Rattata can chew through anything, you know? Besides, you're doing fine enough," she reassured me. "I had to take the same sort of approach with Charles when I first caught him. Except the problem then was that my bulbasaur died a few days later, so I was stuck with only him." She smiled and grabbed the stantler's cheeks, squeezing them and puffing out her own. "But then I managed to train you, yes I did! And now you're a big, strong, not-very-amused stantler, aren't you? Yes you are!"

He snorted and flicked his ears. Scar rumbled lowly, almost like he was laughing. I just decided that it was probably a good thing I couldn't understand them.

"Well I've also got a skarmory that can't fly," I said as I tried to get Scar to stand back up. When he started to ignore me I tried to lift him up instead. "Would be nice... if I could find out... why she can't!" I let go of the stubborn charmeleon and panted, doubling over and holding my knees. "How the hell are you so heavy?"

He grunted a small, unimpressed sound at me. I blew my hair from my face as I waved a hand at him, deciding to deal with him later.

"Does your skarmory run fast?" Mia asked me, randomly.

I laughed at the memory of Sophie chasing the postman down the road. "Yup – I didn't know skarmory could run that fast."

Mia nodded and hummed to herself. "That sounds like something I heard on one of the discovery channels when I was younger. Pokémon can interbreed – electrical pokémon can have eggs with non-electrical pokémon and so on. There was this special on doduo and dodrio – those two Kantonese birds that can't fly? Well they can breed with flying pokémon, like pidgeot. There was a case about that – a dodrio mother bred with a pidgeot father and the egg hatched into a pidgey. But the father died, so the dodrio had to raise the pidgey by herself. Since dodrio can't fly, the mother couldn't teach the pidgey how to. So instead of learning to fly from a parent, like most flying pokémon would, the pidgey learn how to run really fast instead. By the time it had evolved into a pidgeot, it still hadn't been taught how to fly, but it could run really, _really _fast.

"By the time someone taught it how to fly, the researchers found out that it actually preferred running to flying." Mia smiled as she reached up and rubbed her stantler's ears. "It's actually more common than people think – that programme said it happens to about one in every thousand flying pokémon."

I grabbed Sophie's poké ball and stared at it, contemplating and slightly discouraged. "So even if I taught her how to fly, she still might not?"

Mia nodded and then shrugged. "Yeah, but you could always just saddle her up and make her run you to places instead, couldn't you?"

I nodded. "I suppose."

"Good!" Mia declared as she slapped me on the back. Scar hissed at her, backing down only when I shook my head at him. Mia however acted like it never happened. "So can I see her?"

I nodded once more and tossed Sophie's poké ball out, releasing her just behind Scar. She cawed as she came fully into view, stretched her neck round and stared down at Scar, chirped at him and then looked back up, staring intently at Mia and her stantler.

I chuckled as I walked up to Sophie and stroked her neck feathers. "Sophie, this is Mia and her stantler, Charles. They're friends." I smiled and turned to Mia. "This is Sophie. She's a little... well... inquisitive."

As if on cue, Sophie bounced forwards and stopped before Mia, head bobbing and twitching at the new person. Once her analysis was complete, Sophie spread her wings and screeched.

I groaned and buried my face in a hand. "That's a habit of hers. I have no idea why she does it." Scar hissed in agreement as he too watched the metallic bird.

Unlike the business woman Sophie last tormented with such habits, Mia began to laugh at her antics. "I like her. She's mad. If I remember right from training Percy, this is just a sort of introduction; 'look at me, I am such-and-such and I like eating small rodents!'"

I spared a glance at Charles. Apparently he was unfazed by such behaviour. Scar and I, however, shared identical looks of bewilderment.

Mia laughed and tucked her arms into her armpits before she flapped them and made a screeching sound. I winced, half expecting Sophie to attack her, yet instead the skarmory seemed surprised and genuinely thrilled by Mia's actions. Sophie tucked her wings to her side before she spread them again with another screech.

It was like something out of a television show. The both of them there, flapping their arms or wings, making screeching noises at each other.

"Kraw!

"Krawr!

"_Kraw!_

"_Krawr!"_

I groaned and squatted down next to Scar. "You know, if you and everyone else ever sit around and say _I'm_ insane... there's your proof right there that I'm actually quite normal."

He grunted as Mia burst out laughing and walked up to me. "I like that skamory, she's a lot of fun," she said, even as the bird bounced behind her and nipped at her shoulders, searching for more attention. I sighed, told Sophie off, yet when she continued to ignore me I just recalled her.

"How is it that you even manage to bring insanity to saying 'hello' to a pokémon?" I asked, amused and amazed.

Mia grinned as she wrapped her arms around her stantler again. "Because the world would be boring if it were sane and normal. If being insane is the only way I can have fun, I'll end up in a padded cell and enjoy myself all the while."

I nodded with an amused snort. "Yeah, you'd be throwing yourself at the walls all the while and laughing about how bouncy they are."

"Possibly." She winked and detached herself from her pokémon. "So you wanna head down to the gym? I want to book myself a battle and if you're still here, I'm guessing you haven't either?"

"Not yet," I told her as I recalled Scar. "I was going to do it sometime soon; I just wanted to make sure my pokémon were strong enough to actually win it quite easily."

She smiled as she returned her stantler to its ball. "People try doing that for their entire lives. There's always going to be someone better than you; there's always going to be someone worse. Just don't go crazy like some people and start hacking apart pokémon yourself, all because you think it defines how strong you are."

Too late there. Except for the defining how strong I am part. A lot of my childhood involved having to hack up pokémon that had got too close to camp or even those that were dead and couldn't burn fast enough when they were whole.

Sometimes, I'm still amazed I turned out slightly sane.

"Though that reminds me," Mia said as she linked her arm into mine. "When I was coming here, I found this big weird knife just randomly in a patch of grass. I think someone lost it, but Rusty – my lairon – he seemed to think it was blood. In fact, so did Jeff – my cacnea."

Adryan's knife. I knew instantly it had to be that. I remembered that Adryan had dropped it when he'd seen Lucy, yet I'd forgotten about it until it was far too late to go back. I had hoped that someone would have taken it as their own, or that it could have even just never been found.

"What did you do with it?" I asked her, hoping she didn't hand it over to police or something. If they found it and saw Adryan's fingerprints on it, they'd start to investigate the area to see if it had been used. I couldn't remember if I'd ever touched it. If it had mine on though, they could link it back to Aaron. Maybe even the Champion in Dewford. The weapons store in Rustboro too!

She shrugged. "I was going to check it out, but Rusty decided it would make a good snack. Seriously, lairon are strange pokémon; they eat _metal_. I've taken to stealing cutlery from places just to give to him as a treat."

I laughed. "I've got a sableye. He likes eating rocks. Evolution stones too. Supposedly crystals and gems as well, but I haven't found any of those yet."

Mia smiled and stopped in front of a large dusty-purple building with large glass doors. Thick black ivy crawled up and around the brick work and a number of generators could be heard running, even from the outside.

"They're to make the place smell nice," Mia told me, almost like she was reading my mind. "The gym here specialises in poisonous pokémon – they tend to like eating rotten garbage as well as producing smelly, toxic gasses. In short, the place usually stinks." She looked up at me and smiled. "You wouldn't believe how badly the entire _city_ of Fuschia smelt before they put in air purifiers for the gym."

I tried not to imagine the smell for myself. Instead I squinted forwards, behind the glass doors, trying to find some trace of life. "It looks shut," I commented needlessly.

"It shouldn't be," Mia said with a frown. She walked towards the gym and watched as the automatic doors slid open for her, then bounced around to face me with a smile. "See, open! We just need to find the receptionist and we're in business – maybe we can even get a battle today!"

I nodded and followed her in. The whole place was quiet. Abandoned even. I couldn't hear anything over the whirr of the generators. There were no people, no signs of life. No smells.

No nothing.

"I don't like this," I said as I wrapped an arm around Mia's shoulders, pulling her towards me and hopefully out of danger.

She smiled and looked up at me, her face dropping open in shock in an instant.

She screamed.

Something smashed into my head.

And my vision exploded into darkness.

* * *

I groaned as consciousness returned, bringing with it the fierce hammering in the back of my skull. My head rolled on my shoulders and I fought the urge to be sick.

I dropped my head and gurgled, vision swimming and my limbs strangely refusing to move. I tried to move my arms. Nothing. I tried to move my legs. Nothing still.

I groaned and rolled my head back, slamming it against something hard and wooden. I hissed, wondering just what it could be as my vision slowly cleared.

I was wearing bracelets?

No, I realised as it all became clear. Big, thick metal bonds held me to a table that was balanced at an angle in the middle of the room, leaving me somewhere between standing and lying down.

I groaned and looked down, only to see that my feet were bound too. Added to that, everything I owned was gone – my bag, my weapons, my pokémon! Even my clothes!

Bound there in only my underwear, I managed to gurgle to myself. "This... can't be good."

I heard footsteps approaching behind a big metal door in front of me. There were a number of tables against the walls, all metallic, all of them bare, save for a few papers and a vice, strangely enough.

Keys jangled as they were forced into the lock and I prepared myself for whatever freak would walk into the room.

"You!" I gasped as my kidnapper walked in. The damned trilby-girl was here!

"Me," she confirmed simply, shutting the door behind her and sitting on a table opposite me.

"What's going on here?" I snarled at her, trying as best as I could to ignore the pounding in the back of my skull.

The girl sighed and stared at the floor. "Things beyond your control. You called me a liar before, you were right. That time-traveller's group, all a lie."

That wasn't much of a surprise.

"But it had a purpose!" she swore as she looked back up at me. Without her hat I saw how young she really looked – she couldn't have been older than fifteen. "The leader of that group... he's also one of the highest gym trainers there are here. He's abused some psychic powers and found out a few things. You're really from the future, aren't you?"

I laughed with as much bluster as I could manage. Inside my heart was beating a mile a minute. Were they going to kill me? Torture me? Both? What about my pokémon? Were they alive? Were they going to be tortured? Were they going to be hurt so they could get at me?

"If I was from the future, how could I get here?" I growled at her. "I don't think time machines have been invented yet."

The girl sighed again. "Celebi," she said and my eyebrows flew into my hairline. "The psychics told Cr-that man that a celebi would bring someone here that would cause a lot of trouble for Hoenn... for everyone, really."

"_Right,"_ I drawled. "And how, exactly, does a celebi manage to do something like that?"

"Stop lying!" she snapped at me. "I saw it that day, in that group! The way you reacted! It confirmed it all! You don't understand what's really going on here! War-"

"Ooh, _war_," I mocked and shook my hands as much as I could. "Countries are always at war girly, only rarely does it actually become public knowledge. People have power, they want more power. They find ways to try and get more power, when there's no other way left; they rush in and take power by force, rather than by stealth."

She shook her head at me. "You don't understand-"

"No, _you_ don't understand!" I snarled at her. "You've kidnapped me, stolen my pokémon and are doing who knows what with my friend! You think there's any way that you can justify any of this?"

Her eyes met mine before her entire gaze dropped to the floor. "Believe me. I wish it didn't have to be this way."

I scoffed at that. "How'd you manage to set this all up? You couldn't have known in advance that I was coming to the gym today."

She rolled her shoulders. "Actually... we knew."

Shock smacked me in the face. "What? But, how?"

She looked up at me, met my eyes and then looked down to the floor again. "When I kissed you. I slipped you something, a drug. Harmless! But it acts as a powerful marker that poisonous pokémon can sense and track. Then the leader had his haunter track you, and she alerted us when you were coming here."

I shuddered and suddenly felt dirty and violated. How was it that the haunter had managed to track me without me noticing? I'd felt wrong when the shedinja came at me, but I had no clue there was a haunter on my trail for a week!

Though more than that, the fact that the girl kissed me for business means felt like I'd been punched. "My friend. My pokémon. Where are they?"

The girl shrugged. "I don't know. I'm only allowed to see you. I can't say about your friend, maybe they'll let her go. But they'll want to know how much she knows about you – whether she knows if you're from the future or not."

I remained there, shackled to the strange table and laughed at her. A mocking, yet scared and hopeless laugh.

"You need to understand something," she told me. "You shouldn't be here. The last guy that came back through time, he did... _something_. I don't know what, but it fucked up a lot of things. This is just making sure that you don't cause the world to implode or something."

I dropped my gaze and glared up at her. "Now _you_ need to understand something," I hissed darkly. "_You're_ the one that's got me into this situation. _You've_ gotten my pokémon involved in this, one of my best friends and her pokémon too. You better hope that I never get out of this sick fantasy you, your boss or whoever has placed me in. Because if I do... I. Will. Kill. You."

Her eyes widened before she gulped and grabbed her keys with shaky hands. She took one last look at me before she slid out of the door and locked it shut behind her.

Alone in the darkness, I hung my head and felt a lump swell in my throat. I leant my chin on my chest and felt my heartbeat frantically.

I needed to escape.

I needed to find my pokémon before they were hurt.

I needed to find Mia before she was hurt.

I needed revenge on the sick fucks that put me there in the first place.

Tears threatened to burst out of my eyes, but I fought to keep them inside. I wouldn't cry! I wouldn't let those people beat me! I would find a way out and get my revenge on them all!

My head snapped up at the sound of keys jangling again. I wondered idly whether it was the traitorous trilby-girl before the door opened and a man walked into the room. He looked about thirty, short dark hair, a hairy face, dressed in a purple jumper and trousers that were so dark they were almost black.

He looked at me, nothing readable in his brown eyes before he shut the door. I saw him drop a black bag on one of the tables before he crossed the distance of the room and squeezed my chin with only one hand.

"_Never_ threaten the girl again," he hissed, even as he continued to choke me. Tears leaked out of my eyes as I thought for breath. After an age he released me and I sucked in air greedily, not caring about how weak I looked in front of him.

He stared at me, as someone would with a painting. Finally he clicked his tongue and turned around. "Not the best specimen, but passable enough. No one will really care anyway; it won't be your face they're interested in."

Fear burst like a cold balloon in my stomach, flooding my entire being with it. "What're you talking about?" I croaked, hating myself for how my voice broke.

The man turned around to me and gave me a sinister smirk. "I don't know what the girl told you, but we're not going to kill you. Not while there's money to be had. You wouldn't believe what the market is like for young men these days."

My stomach dropped out of my body. "Go fuck yourself," I snarled, understanding just what they had planned for me.

He spun around and smacked me in the face, making my teeth rattle. "A fighter. Good. People pay more money for that sort of thing. Personally, I have no idea why people are into such depraved acts, but there's a market there; who are we to judge paying customers?"

I glared at him and balled all my hate and fear into resilience. "I'll get out of here," I promised him. "And when I do, I'll make sure you die a very slow and painful death."

The man laughed to himself as he reached into the bag and pulled out a variety of things. Once I saw a needle I started to squirm in my restraints, hoping that I could find some way out. I didn't want anything being forced inside me. I needed to escape!

The man laughed once more. "You won't be able to escape those bonds. Even machop struggle." He turned around and sat on the desk, gesturing to a number of blades, corkscrews and needles. "Now I'll tell you this once; answer my questions the first time, or I'll be forced to take means to make you more compliant, so to speak."

I wanted to run. I wanted freedom. I needed to be anywhere but there! But I couldn't escape. Instead I could only scoff at him. "'Do as I say or I'll torture you'? Ten points for originality." I tried to put on a brave face, but my arms were shaking and twitching like mad. So were my legs. Even if I got fear from my voice, my body displayed it instead.

The man just smirked at me. "Torture is a rather... redundant method, to be honest. There are other ways to make someone speak." He reached into his bag and produced a poké ball, showed it to me before he clamped it into the vice. "Now, this is an automatic vice with the safety limits removed. Once activated, it will continue to crush until it closes completely." He held a finger just above the button to activate it. "Now tell me, are you from the future?"

I smirked to myself. Fear the man and his automatic vice, I told myself. What was the worst he could do? Break a poké ball? I told myself that wouldn't do anything.

I sneered at him. "Trying to find out if you're famous in the future or not? I'll give you a hint; when I get out of here, you're dead. Fame won't matter."

The man sighed. "Pity. The hard way it is."

He pressed the button.

I laughed as the vice whirred into life, slowly crushing the poké ball. Sparks flew madly out of it, decorating the air. The metal of the vice began to screech as it struggled to close completely. More sparks danced through the air. Finally there was an almost metallic scream as the poké ball exploded, peppering me with small pieces of shrapnel and covering the entire floor in bits of burst poké ball.

"Lesson one," the man said. "The hard way is not the way you'll want to play things."

I laughed at him. So he'd destroyed a poké ball? So what.

"Big man," I drawled. "You made a poké ball explode. _I'm so scared mister; please don't pop anymore poké balls. I'll tell you everything, I promise!_" I laughed at him as I tried to move my arms. "Get bent."

The man stared at me, impassiveness destroyed by a look of curiosity. "Tell me, boy, did you not learn anything in school?"

I laughed at him again. "Who needs school? I know how to kill you well enough without it."

A sinister, eerie smile grew on the man's face. "Ah, then you won't know."

My bravado crashed and burnt at his words. "Know what?"

He folded his arms. "What do you think happens to the pokémon inside when a poké ball is destroyed?"

"It gets released?" I guessed.

The man laughed. "No child. The pokémon inside is killed. There is no way to recover the body or retrieve the pokémon that was once inside. The pokémon is dead. Now take another look at the poké ball."

If he'd stabbed me he couldn't have hurt me more. It was one of my poké balls. I just knew it. One of my pokémon had been inside that ball. One of my pokémon had been attacked by that vice. One of my pokémon had been killed. One of my pokémon now existed only as fragments cluttering the floor.

And I'd laughed about it all.

"_You bastard!"_ I screamed at him, struggling with all my strength to break free of my bonds. I wanted to punch him! I wanted to kick him! I wanted to bury my thumbs in his eyes and make him scream before I killed him! _"I'll rip off your arms and beat you to death with them! You deluded, sick, perverted, torturous fucker!"_

He laughed and smacked me in the mouth again. I snarled and tried to bite his hand as he drew back, cursing him and whoever shared his blood.

"Now you understand the consequences," he said as he sat back on the table. I wanted it to break underneath him. For it to break and those knives to pierce his heart, making him die slowly and painfully. One of my pokémon was dead – I didn't even know who!

"So, I'll ask my question again; are you from the future?"

Tears blurred my vision as I looked at him, hating him with every ounce of my being. "I. Am going. To kill you."

"The death of your pokémon won't make you talk?" he asked, amazed. I wanted to reach over and rip his tongue out. To wipe that smug look off his face. To do anything to kill him!

He picked up the syringe on the desk and a little pot of some sort of clear liquid. I felt fear punch through me again and my arms and legs both started shaking. It could have been anything! Adrenaline! That would keep me awake if he tortured me! Maybe some sort of truth serum! Poison even! Tell him everything and get the antidote, or die slowly and painfully!

He filled the syringe with the fluid and held it in the air, pushed the plunger and squirted a little bit of the liquid through the air. "A few days of being treated with this and not only will you be telling us what we want to know, but you'll also be doing anything for a fix."

My eyes widened and I struggled again to get away. I had to get out! He'd killed my pokémon! He was going to pay for that!

He smiled at me and held my left arm down. I snarled at him like an animal, trying to scare him away or anything. He just laughed, tied a little bit of string around my arm, found the vein and thrust the needle straight into it.

"You'll be talking soon enough," he promised me as he pressed the plunger and filled me with the substance.

My head began to swirl instantly and my heart beat just a little bit slower. He'd killed one of my pokémon. One of the creatures I'd spent so long to raise; loved possibly more than I loved myself. I had no idea who it was.

Xander.

Loki.

Lacey.

Erra.

Scar.

Sophie.

Then I forgot about everything under the delightful haze of drug-filled bliss.


	37. Escape Methods 101

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Escape Methods 101

* * *

**

_The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them_ ~ William Clayton

**-O-O-O-**

"_Never underestimate what good people will do in a bad situation."_

- Devon Stone, founder of Devon Inc. _(January 23__rd__, 2968)_

**-O-O-O-**

My arm itched.

It was the main thing I noticed when my world came crashing down again. Pain flooded back into my body; fear and foreboding replaced bliss and my mouth felt as dry as a desert.

I groaned as I rolled my head across my shoulders and leant my chin on my chest. I needed a drink. I needed to get out of the strange shackles binding my wrists and ankles. I knew I needed to get out of the strange bunker, rescue my pokémon and Mia, yet I couldn't help but want to achieve such bliss again.

I shook a hand feebly as I tried in vain to scratch my stupid itchy elbow. It was only when I stared at the horrible blue-black bruise that I really realised how bad a situation I was in.

I'd been injected with some sort of drug and knew I was already starting on a downward slope to addiction. I had to find a way out of the metallic cuffs that bound me to the strange table, to get out of the room, find my pokémon and rescue Mia before I could be injected with the junk again.

The worse part of it all was that I knew I wanted that feeling again. I wanted the pain and stress to go away; to be left with no feeling other than that brilliant euphoric peace.

Joy and despair hit me at once when the door unlocked and my addiction-benefactor walked in. I wouldn't be able to get away with him in the room, yet I'd get to have another brilliant release from the miracle-in-a-syringe.

Getting another dose would be a win-lose situation, I knew. A win in the short term, a loss in the long... yet I didn't care at the time. If I were to be trapped in that room for any given amount of time, I wanted to pass it in the least painful and stressful way possible.

The man walked up to me and smacked the bruise on my elbow with two fingers. I hissed at him and tried to punch him as best I could. However, the bonds held me tight, refusing to let me move more than a few centimetres. I sighed and relegated myself to just glaring up at the man.

"I'll kill you for all this," I promised him.

He smiled and folded his arms smugly. "You'd have to escape first. I happen to know that you have no chance of escaping; the only way you're getting out is if someone lets you out. And I sincerely doubt that's going to happen at all."

My hair fell into my eyes as I continued to glare at him. "I'll find a way. You killed my pokémon. At least have the courtesy to tell me what one of them it was."

He shook his head. "And why would I want to do that? The best you can hope for is that I tell you once you let me know everything I need to." He turned his back on me, walked over to the table and picked up something sharp and shiny. I fidgeted in my bonds as much as I could, hoping to see exactly what it was. All I knew was that my options were looking even bleaker; get tortured into revealing the information, or just hooked on a drug and then forced into exchanging information for another fix. Either way wasn't good; I wasn't trained to resist torture – I _really_ didn't want him sticking a knife in me or cutting off anything that I supposedly wouldn't miss – and I definitely didn't want to become hooked to something I'd only be able to get from back-alley dealers.

I turned my head away and scrunched my eyes shut, refusing to let any tears leak out. I heard the man walk back to my table and stop by my side. Moments past in silence, yet still nothing happened. I stayed looking away, my eyes shut and refusing to look back at him.

Finally my resolve broke as I rolled back over and opened my eyes at the man.

My heart gave out when he thrust a knife down at me.

I screamed and flinched as far away from the blade as I could. It bounced off the metal an inch away from my arm with a harsh metallic clang. I barely heard it over the thundering of my heart, the pulse banging in my ears and the way I breathed frantically.

"The next time, I'll be aiming for you instead," he promised as he stroked his thumb along the blade edge. "Now, answer my question; are you from the future?"

I rolled my eyes behind my eyelids. I weighed up my options as best I could, as quickly as I could. If I told them everything, I doubted that they would turn round and suddenly release me with a pat on the back and a lollypop. It seemed unlikely that I'd ever be making it out of that damned room.

Yet at the same time, I didn't know what he wanted to do with the information. He could have been part of a group that was trying to ensure my future happened, or even was trying to guide it in their own way, or something equally as farfetched.

I didn't know what to do.

I was afraid that he'd hurt me. I feared for my pokémon's lives; for their safety as well as Mia's.

I hated these people for what they had done to me and how they'd dragged my innocent friends into it all.

I longed for the feeling of that drug pouring through my veins.

I despised the people for making me feel so hooked on the damn drug in the first place.

And most of all; I hated the fact that even though I'd tried to live a normal life, my miracle-turned-debacle had fucked up my life once more.

I shook my head and looked up at the man, fear already burning in my stomach. "I don't know what you're talking about," I told him.

"Pity," he whispered.

Then pain exploded in my palm.

I screamed from the agony of it all as he rested a finger calmly atop the blade sticking through my hand.

"I told you to answer my questions," he said apathetically. "Now I advise you to actually answer me now."

I breathed quick, shallow breaths to try and numb the pain as best I could. I didn't trust him. I couldn't let him know.

"Still... don't know... what you're on about!" I breathed though the pain and tried to force as much conviction into my voice as possible.

The man raised an eyebrow and twisted the knife. Pain screamed all through my hand as my nerves felt like they were on fire.

"Stop, stop, _stop!_ I screamed at him, unable to bare it all. "I'll talk! I'll talk!" I sobbed as I tried to pry the knife back out of my hand. "I'm from the future, okay! Now make it stop!"

The man smirked and pulled the blade from my hand. "Good. You've learnt." He reached down and I felt something cold prick the skin of my elbow. Almost instantly a little smile came across my face. "And now you'll learn the benefits of being a good boy."

I chuckled like a manic as euphoric bliss pumped through my veins once more, bringing the sweet oblivion of unconscious ecstasy with it.

* * *

Hours seemed to roll into days and then weeks when I was in that room. Everything about me was a mess; I had no idea when I'd had my last fix; only that I needed to get a new one soon.

I groaned as everything returned to reality and I was left with a hollow, stump of an emotional core once again.

Keys jingled around the door again and I felt my heart leap within my chest; his return meant more drugs for me. It meant I wouldn't have to feel so hollow inside. It meant I'd feel peaceful again!

The door opened and the trilby-girl slunk through. Instantly my gut and face fell upon seeing her in the room. She looked up at me, scrunched her nose and shook her head.

"What is that _smell?_" she grunted and pinched her nose as quickly as she could.

I groaned and started laughing at her. "Do you think they give me bathroom breaks while I'm here?"

Realisation peeled her eyes open completely. "Oh," she whispered and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry. I didn't want everything to turn out like this. I didn't think... I thought you wouldn't come back. I thought if they tried doing anything like this... you'd be strong enough to resist."

I laughed at her again, heedless of the drool that slithered out my mouth and down my chin. "Celebi doesn't pick them like it used to, huh? We're not all the big heroes from the legends, girly. I'm just an ordinary seventeen year old kid from the future."

Her head snapped back up at that. "You're...?"

I nodded with a lunatic's smile spread over my face. "Damn right! Eighty years from now!" I laughed again and tried to move my wrists a little. "You think I wouldn't tell all? My hand's got a hole in it now... my elbow's got track marks and bruises that say it all... I say what they need to hear... I get to escape the pain for a little while."

She looked up at me and shook her head to herself. "It's only been a week," she whispered to herself, gripping the keys hard. "This shouldn't be happening to you. This place... it's meant for the people that aren't right... the ones that shouldn't exist in the world. We're the _good_ guys! We do this to the bad ones! You shouldn't be here."

"Of course I shouldn't be here, I'm from the future," I mocked her. "Now have you come to bore me, or have you come to help me out here?" I waved my scarred hand and injection-riddled arm. "Could do with a little help easing the pain, you know?"

She glared at me. "What's happened to you?" she whispered.

I laughed again. "Well, _you_ happened to slip me a drug that got a haunter to track me. Forget that?" I groaned and turned my head a little to the side. "As for the rest... I think that's obvious." My brain spun in my head and my elbow itched something fierce, yet all I could think about was getting another fix.

The girl sighed to herself. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. For you and your friend."

I remembered Mia suddenly and that she'd been captured to. "What're they doing to her?" I growled, forcing myself to be angry with them rather than myself. I told myself it wasn't my fault I'd forgotten about her – I'd been pumped that full of drugs I'd forgotten about everything else.

The girl just shook her head again. "I can't say. Just know I'm sorry."

I laughed scornfully as she turned to leave the room. "If you want to help, get us out of here. Or get me another fix. Either one would be helpful right now!" The door slammed shut and I glared at the metallic barrier between me and the outside world.

"Bitch."

* * *

It must have been about an hour later when the door opened again. I groaned at the sound and tried to hide my ears from it all. If they weren't bringing another fix, I hoped it was a drink – my mouth felt so dry I was sure it could have been used as sandpaper.

To my surprise it was the trilby-girl again, looking as shifty as ever. She cast a quick glance out of the door before she shut and it checked my hand as quickly as she could.

I winced at her touch and tried to snatch my hand away from her – to no avail. "Come to gloat?" I hissed at her.

She looked at me as her tongue played nervously with her lip ring. "You don't trust me. I don't blame you." I heard something metallic click and found my injured hand suddenly free and by my side. "I told you; we're meant to be the good guys. This isn't doing good." She sighed, reached down and placed some clothes on my chest. "I brought you a change of underwear. I couldn't find anything else spare. We can probably find something on the way out."

I snorted and rubbed my hurt hand when the other was freed. "You're just hoping I don't follow through on my threat to kill you."

She winced and then smiled a little. "I suppose that's a little part of that," she said as she quickly unlocked my ankles.

I met her smile with my own.

Then I punched her in the jaw and knocked her out.

"I'm not going to kill you," I told her unconscious form as I changed quickly. "I'm just going to leave you here to die instead." I laughed to myself as I tried to step over her, only for my legs to give out from underneath me. I grunted as I landed on the floor and hissed at the sudden pain of it all, wanting nothing more than for a way to be rid of the agony-filled spasms.

I realised I had to escape as quickly as possible. Someone could be coming at any time. My heart beat faster and faster with every small thing, telling me it was someone coming to discover me. Every sound. Every voice. Every passing shadow.

Keys jangled outside. I yelped and pulled myself behind the table I'd been strapped to for so long, breathing frantically. I knew they'd walk in and find me. They'd find the girl knocked out. They'd find me free. Then they'd find me and do who knew what to me too.

The sound of keys disappeared and I heard nothing in my little room. I poked my head out from behind the table, to find the room completely unchanged. I laughed to myself as I began to crawl away from my hiding place.

Then I heard a key slide into my door's lock.

I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood when the door flew open and footsteps thundered into the room. I heard distant, furious mumblings as I hugged my knees and buried my head on them both.

I couldn't be captured again! Not when I'd been so close to escaping!

The person stood up and stepped slowly around the room. The heavy sounds of boots treading on the floor were like psychological torture. Every step he took meant another chance of me getting discovered.

"I know you're still in here."

The voice made my head snap back up. My torturer! My supplier and the reason for my addiction to those stupid drugs!

The man who'd killed one of my pokémon.

I took a slow, silent breath and started to inch myself away from his footsteps. I had to find some way to get out! Some sort of weapon, something that I could use to knock him out.

My heart leapt for joy when I saw the tables at the side of the room, covered with potential weapons.

I heard the footsteps walk slowly around the room, closer still to my position. I was amazed he hadn't found me, but tried to think of it as little as possible. I inched myself closer and closer to the table, waiting for the opportunity to grab one of the weapons.

They were about two feet away from me. I jumped up and leapt at them, sensing freedom. Only a hand snatched my hair and dragged me back down to earth, smashing my face into the marble floor beneath.

"Did you really think I couldn't see you?" my pokémon's murderer whispered into my ear. My body shook and betrayed the fear I felt to him, as much as I tried to keep calm. "I found it rather amusing to see you crawling across the floor ever so slowly, thinking that I was so dense I wouldn't notice you?"

He growled, pulled me up by my hair and closed his other hand around my neck, slowly squeezing and stopping my breathing.

"I didn't think she would try to help you," he told the back of my skull. "But she doesn't understand that our actions are necessary."

I wheezed and tried to find some way of attacking him. My limbs were too weak from drug use. My legs threatened to give way beneath me. Air was refusing to come into my lungs. I was being strangled, ever so slowly. Every breath I couldn't take stung my chest and ripped in my throat.

I grunted as I flailed my arms, trying to punch the man. He laughed and shifted back a little, my flailing attacks hitting nothing but air. I gave up and felt water leak from my eyes as breathing became even more difficult.

"Don't try this again," he growled into my ear. He moved his weight again so that he was completely behind me. "Drug addiction and a knife through your hand will be the least of your pains if you do."

With the final amount of strength in my body, I reached back and grabbed him between the legs. He gasped and then screamed in pain as I twisted my hand as sharply as I could. As soon as he doubled over I smashed my elbow into his face and felt nothing but delighted as hot, coppery blood splashed over me.

He fell to the floor, one hand gripping his face, the other holding his other injuries. I laughed breathlessly as I fell down roughly to the floor, trying to inhale as much of the stale, stank air as I could.

He got back to his feet far quicker than I would have hoped. I yelped as I dove forwards and grabbed a small scalpel in my hands, turning with shaking hands to meet him. He growled, leapt at me like a furious animal as I fell sideways into a clumsy roll.

Then he screamed as I drove the scalpel through the back of his leg.

I laughed at the beautiful sound before I pulled the blade out and stuck it in his shoulders. He screamed once more, blood pooling out around him as I quickly slammed the metallic door shut, giving us a little peace.

A predatory grin came over my face as I heaved him to his feet with all my strength and slammed his face down on the table. Dazed, he tried to attack me and managed to punch me in the gut.

I doubled over, winded and with tears in my eyes. I cursed him and took a deep breath before I slammed his face on the table again, leaving a thick, bubbling red smear that made me smile.

Then I saw the perfect tool of revenge. I dragged him by his collar to the side of the table and slammed his face down in the metallic vice. It took only a few seconds to shut his head perfectly within the metallic jaws, after which I laughed and fell back on the desk, trying to recover my breath.

The man blinked, groaned and tried to regain his bearings before panic became obvious. He flailed about manically, kicking and screaming as his hands found the clamps around his head. He pried at them uselessly, cursing me and swearing vengeance as his shoulder and leg continued to bleed everywhere.

I laughed, fell over myself, punched him in the face and overcompensating, managed to fall on top of him too. He hissed, pushed me off and I flew backwards onto the floor, laughing like a maniac all the while.

"You're going to answer my questions now!" I gloated as I pulled myself back to my feet. I picked up one of the many blades from the table and held it just underneath the man's eye. "You're going to tell me what I know, then I'm going to kill you."

His eyes widened yet stayed trained on the metal threatening to puncture them. "Don't you mean 'or I'm going to kill you'?" he hissed.

I snorted. "Not so confident now the tables are turned, are you?" I jammed the blade down in the front of his injured shoulder and relished the screams before I pulled it back out. "What one of my pokémon did you kill?"

He breathed quick, shallow breaths, much like I did when the roles were reversed. "I don't know," he growled.

"You don't know?" I screamed and pulled at his collar, placing the blade to his eye again. "Liar!"

"I'm not lying!" he blurted out quickly. "I swear I don't know!" he told me, holding up his hands, palms out, next to his head. "I just got given one of the poké balls, knew it wasn't poisonous and knew I didn't have any use for it."

I growled and pressed the tip of the metal into his eye just enough so that nothing was punctured. "Where are the rest of them?" I growled.

"Other trainers!" he breathed. "Your pokémon were divided out. Five other people have one each!"

"The whole gym is in on this?" I whispered incredulously to myself. I shook my head and refocused on the man. I was starting to have trouble focusing and felt my arms and legs all shaking with the amount of energy I was putting into standing up. My body was craving a fix – it was all I could do to try and stay relatively intact until I could escape.

I pressed my free arm into the man's neck. "Where is my stuff and where is my friend?"

He attempted a shrug. "Incinerated. Your stuff, not your friend!" he yelped quickly. "Everything you had on you apart from money, food and that's been destroyed. Your pokédex might be in the safe with your money – they're built to last. Your friend... I don't know. She's probably still in here somewhere."

"Right," I growled and pushed myself off him. He relaxed just a little before I smiled and reached across to a little control panel. "Now I believe I promised death?"

He screamed as I activated the mechanical vice. I watched with morbid fascination as it pressed against either side of his skull, slowly squashing it and distorting it into some strange, eerie sort of shape.

"Last thing," I said as I grabbed a bit of his shirt. "Where do you keep everything you injected me with?"

He looked back down at me and managed to plaster a smirk over his fear. Almost like a final one-over on me, he refused to give me the location of my cravings before he died.

I snarled at him and watched his head begin to grow out of proportions. His screams became nothing but white noise as I watched his head burst like a balloon, spraying blood, brains and bone all over the wall behind him.

I flinched as a little splashed on me. I looked down as the machine finally whirred to a close and picked a little bit of brain from my chest.

"Great," I grumbled as I flicked gray matter from my body. "As if I couldn't get any dirtier."

I snuck over and opened the door a crack before I slithered back into the room and pried what I could off the dead man. I stole what remained of his shirt, work pants and his boots, though I did have to pad out his boots with his socks since they were too big for me and kept flopping along, making excessive noise.

He didn't have anything worthwhile on him though. No identification, no money and worst of all; no weapon. I growled to myself, picked up a set of keys and a knife before I snuck out of the door and made my escape for freedom.

Instantly I regretted not bringing a hostage with me. At least they would have been able to navigate their way through the corridors. All I could see were the same metallic walls, leading off into each and every direction like an artificial, sterile maze.

I crept into the first room I found. It was filled with useless junk; file cabinets from wall to wall and papers decorating both the floors and the desks. I realised how useless my escape attempts were then. I didn't know anything about the place I was trying to escape, nor about the people I was trying to escape from.

I was in clothes that were far too big for me, lost in their home turf and armed with only a small knife against people that would undoubtedly have knives, pokémon and probably guns too.

I buried my face in my hands and realised how stupid I'd been. I was trapped, with one dead body and one unconscious weighed up against me. They were going to kill me if they ever found out what I'd done.

Which seemed to be at any time.

I froze as I saw a shadow pass by the window of the room I was in. I watched the shadow move a little and then as it took off... right in the direction of my little cell.

I cursed and snuck out after the shadow, checking every shadow of the corridors for an enemy. I was in enemy territory, hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. There was every chance I would never escape and I'd never get to save my pokémon or Mia.

The thought of leaving them trapped in that dungeon gave me the resolve to see it all through. I decided then and there that I'd make sure they escaped, even if I didn't get to.

I crouched down and sped along behind the man, watching him cautiously as he patrolled the corridors. I watched him walk into a room and waited a long, agonising moment before I crept up to the door and peeked through the glass.

Then my heart sank once more.

I was staring at a security room. Dozens of monitors lined the wall, each displaying a different view of somewhere within the base.

They had to have seen me escape!

I counted only two people inside the room – the security guard and the man I'd followed. The one I'd followed was standing near the door, his back towards it. The other person was mostly hidden behind the other man, though I could tell that his back was also to the door.

I counted my lucky blessings and took a slow deep breath before I inched the door open. Slowly, ever so slowly I opened it. I couldn't make a noise or they'd both notice me. I knew it was foolish. I knew they were likely to discover me. But seeing the security footage was probably my best chance of getting a map of the damned place.

I managed to open the door just enough to sneak through. The man I'd followed grunted as he noticed the door slowly swinging to a close.

I panicked and leapt at him. I covered his mouth with a hand as I slit his throat with the blade, spraying blood all over the monitors in front of him.

The other man heard that.

He gasped a strangled sound as he turned around and saw me murdering his workmate. I let go of the dying man and leapt at the other, slicing at him like a madman. He backed away, fell onto the desk and held his hands up to try and block my strikes.

Then he punched me in the side, hard. I winced and darted sideways as he reached up, grabbed my head and smashed it against the desk next to him.

Blood poured from my nose and tears blurred my vision. The man pushed me aside and rushed for the door, trying to call backup. I just about saw him through it all and thrust the knife into his back. He gasped with surprise more than pain and fell into the door, falling down against the metallic frame. He hissed as he tried to get back up before I slid the knife between his ribs and sliced his heart in two.

I fell back against the desk, winded and covered in blood as the man finally died. There was a little blind over the door's window that I pulled down before I turned around and stared at the monitors.

The problem was that half of them were covered in blood.

I groaned as I pinched my nose, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of it. My ears were ringing and my vision was nothing better than a spinning blur. I took a deep breath and tried to focus as best as I could, though the sinking feeling in my stomach stopped me from doing that.

I'd effectively killed them both for nothing.

Although a little part of me reasoned it wasn't for nothing when I realised that if they were swapping shifts, no one should have been coming to check on them for a little while.

The little part rejoiced and took over when I found a gun on the first man I'd killed. I might have been outnumbered in that place, but with a gun in my hands I felt like I stood a chance.

* * *

It seemed like it was taking forever to escape that place. I'd killed two more people that worked there, only to discover nothing worthwhile on any of them. None of them seemed to have any pokémon on them, making me begin to doubt my torturer's words.

It was just another thing to add to the list. My injured hand wasn't feeling too great either, though I was thankful I'd been stabbed in the left hand and not the right – at least being right-handed meant I could still attack people well enough.

I stopped before another standard, same-looking room as I cradled my gun and took as many breaths as I could before I kicked the door open.

The man inside leapt out of his chair instantly. "Hey, what're you-!"

I shot him in the chest.

He went down with a scream as the sound of gunfire made my ears ring a little. As soon as it was over my brain kicked into gear – I'd shot a man in a guarded pokémon gym, where there were no other sounds audible.

I winced and knew that people would be running and looking for me quickly. I shut the door behind me and advanced on the dead man, gun still held ready in my hand. I saw the bullet hole in his chest and sighed to myself – I'd been aiming for his head. It was only sheer dumb luck I'd managed to hit his heart.

My vision swam and I stumbled on my feet, suddenly aware of how much of a state I was in. I shook my head and searched the man as quickly as I could, knowing people would be rushing at me soon.

My heart stopped when I saw the red and white metallic balls on his belt. Pokémon! He was the first man I'd found that actually had one of the creatures on him!

Reality kicked me in the teeth when I realised that _his_ pokémon weren't likely to listen to their trainer's murderer. I'd lucked out with Alistair – unless the man had a team full of gallade with Alistair's code of honour, I wouldn't be able to use any of them.

Or so I thought, until I saw my handwriting on one of the poké balls.

My heart stopped again as I leapt at the ball, cradling it in my hands as I began to laugh. My fingers were shaking as I spun the ball around, eager to read the marking and see who was inside.

"Scar!" I cried in elation. Instantly I pressed the release mechanism on the ball and threw myself at the charmeleon when he appeared before me.

He hissed at the contact and tensed instantly. I laughed and ignored it all as I buried my face in his neck and tried my best not to sob. Scar growled lowly, confused and wanting an explanation. I couldn't blame him. I detached myself form the creature and wiped my eyes, unable to be rid of the smile on my face.

He growled once again as he leant over and sniffed the corpse that tried to claim ownership of him. He stopped above the man's trainer belt, sniffed again before he hissed and set fire to the entire corpse.

I blinked and stared numbly at the flames for a moment before reality kicked me back into touch.

"We need to get out of here Scar," I told him, my entire body shaking as I tried to think of what to do. "I got knocked out. We've been here for a week, at least. Maybe more." I stopped and scratched my head before an impatient hiss from my pokémon prompted me to keep it together. "The rest of our team is down here. So is Mia. We need to find them and get out of here."

I turned and watched the corpse between us burn with a disdainful expression. "Anyone like him," I said as I gestured towards the body with my gun, "feel free to kill. If they've got pokémon on them, make sure you don't destroy them – it looks like these people have got everyone else."

He stretched his neck back to me, his eyes meeting mine before he growled in agreement. I smiled and grabbed hold of the door handle. "Better be ready," I warned him. "I think they know I've escaped now."

I opened the door and Scar leapt out instantly, hissing wildly. I heard a man scream just before Scar growled and ripped the man's throat out, painting the walls red with blood. Another man stood behind them both, frantically trying to reach for his gun. I fired at him, only for my bullet to miss completely and bury itself in the wall instead.

I winced and cursed at once as the man's head snapped up at me. Scar spun round and smacked the human in the stomach with his tail, setting the man's clothes aflame. As he fell to the floor screaming, trying to roll the flames out, my pokémon calmly walked up to him, sniffed him and then bit down on his throat.

Neither the man's dying gurgles nor did the sounds of Scar crunching on bones manage to faze me as I searched the non-flaming body. I found nothing and cursed once more before I nodded for Scar to follow me again. He chirped as he walked just a pace ahead of me, head bouncing with every step.

"Can you smell any of the others?" I asked him in a harsh whisper. He stopped and cocked his head a little. "Or smell anything like me? I need to find them and my stuff."

He stopped and sniffed at the air, turned around, faced me and cawed before trying to walk back past me. I stared off in the direction, realising it only lead to the little room I'd been locked in for so long.

I pressed a hand on his snout and shook my head. "Not back there Scar," I told him and pointed forwards. "We need to go that way. I came from back there; I checked everywhere and found nothing."

He growled and turned around again, skulking through the halls with flames spilling from his teeth. I groaned a little as the world rocked again, lost my balance and fell into a wall. Scar leapt round instantly, spitting flames and hissing wildly until he saw it was just me trying to push myself up and off the floor.

"I'm fine," I grunted at him, even as he bit the back of my collar and tried to help hoist me onto my feet. "Seriously," I told him as he nudged my side with his head, then pressed his neck underneath my arm. I quickly snatched it back to my side and shook my head at him. "I need you to help me escape, not be my support, okay? If you're busy supporting me, we won't be able to deal with anyone coming after us."

He growled a small note in response. I smiled and patted him on the head before I started following him again.

We made it three steps before I heard gunfire.

Both Scar and I froze on the spot. It sounded so close. I began to wonder if someone else had escaped. Maybe Mia had got free and she was trying to fight her way out! Maybe they had someone else here and they'd gotten free, just like me!

Scar growled as he sniffed at the air, scratching one foot against the floor in apprehension.

Instantly I realised the worst possible case; they'd found out about my escape and were killing off all my pokémon.

I nodded for Scar to follow me as we tracked down the source of the sounds. There was more gunfire. Screaming. Pokémon growling and grunting. More screaming. A few more gunshots. Death screams.

Then nothing but silence.

I stopped before the metallic door that sheltered me from the carnage, taking a breath to calm myself. With Scar behind me and my gun in my uninjured hand, I flung the door open.

And found a bloodbath.

The walls, ceiling and the floor were all stained crimson with it. Little meaty chunks were everywhere; some were even still falling from the ceiling. I saw the remains of a few poisonous pokémon like zubat, spinarak and even a few nidoran.

And in the middle of all the carnage was Loki, grinning to himself as he nibbled on a human hand, even as little bits of meat fell from his ears.

"Loki!" I exclaimed and flung myself at the little sableye. He looked up with a grunt and rasped a laugh as I flung my arms around him. "Did they hurt you?" I whispered as I quickly tried to see any injuries.

He laughed again and sucked the remaining blood off his fingers. He looked around, smiled at Scar and bounced up to the charmeleon, cawing happily at the pokémon. Scar looked down at him, snorted a sulphurous breath at the ghost and then began chewing on a human leg that had no body.

I blinked as I stared at the carnage, vaguely that the blood was pouring out into the corridors. "How did you do all this?" I asked my pokémon, bewildered.

He threw back his head and cackled once more. I decided that maybe I was better off not knowing, for the sake of my ever depleting sanity, if nothing else.

"We need to find the others," I told them both. "Loki; you take point. Keep to the shadows. Scar's tracking. If he finds somewhere we need to go into, you slip through the shadows and give them a surprise, alright? When they start screaming, we'll jump in and kill the rest of them."

He looked up at me and the nodded excitedly, bouncing up and down all the while. In a small way I was slightly glad I hadn't found Xander; I knew that he wouldn't approve of me slaughtering everyone in the gym. But they'd all turned a blind eye, tried to take my pokémon and let me get addicted to drugs, all to get as much information out of me as possible.

Which was the other reason why I was going on a rampage. Their plan had worked; I'd told them everything. I just wanted no more pain and to get another fix. I'd told them everything they needed to know in exchange. I didn't know what they were going to use the information for, or even if they had already used it. I just knew that I couldn't let them live, knowing what they did. Something in me told me they wouldn't use what they knew to help me.

I growled to myself as I found Loki's poké ball in amidst the bloody, meaty chunks and placed it in my pocket. I missed my bandolier. I wanted Lacey with me to help in the carnage. I wanted Xander there to bring me some stability. I wanted Sophie there to lighten the mood a little. I wanted Erra with me just so I could show her what happened to people that hurt us.

But most of all... I wanted another fix.

I stumbled over my own feet as I stood back up and managed to fall into Scar once more. He growled and nudged me back to my feet.

"I'm fine," I grunted at him when he wouldn't leave my side. "Seriously. It's just been a while since I've had something to eat. Or something proper to drink." I shook my head, waited for the room to spot spinning and to finally come into focus before I nodded at them both. "Come on."

My pokémon looked at me, shared a concerned glance with each other and then grudgingly began to walk through the halls, occasionally shooting glances back towards me. I promised them I was fine and that I could actually walk every time they did so, ensuring they would help find the others.

I was starting to become a mess by that point. By sheer dumb luck the first room that Scar led us to was only a little storage room. I ransacked it as quickly as I could and found what remained of my stuff; my bandolier and my backpack with nothing but my pokédex and Jennifer's guide book inside.

I cursed and threw it back on the ground. There was none of my clothes left. None of my money. My phone, my wallet; it was all gone!

I touched my neck and realised just how bare it felt without my dogtags around them. The simple reminder of who I was imprinted onto cheap metal and the only thing I'd kept that was from my future.

The whole situation made me so angry. I ended up turning over half of the room in my rage, just trying to find some clue. Some meaning behind it all! I needed something, _anything_ that was able to tell me why the fuck they'd kept me down there like that!

I found nothing like that in the damn room. I found a few hundred poké – less than I had originally – and a couple of small necklaces that they hadn't been able to melt.

Nothing of mine was in there though. I growled and threw it back, only to rattle a number of metallic shelves lining the wall. Everything on the shelves shook. For one horrible moment I thought it was all going to fall down. It didn't, instead showing me something I'd failed to see; a poké ball.

I jumped up the shelves and grabbed the poké ball as quickly as I could. A little flash of marker on the ball itself caught my eye. More letters. More markings.

It was one of mine!

I wondered just why it had been hidden away with the rest of my stuff. My hands were shaking again as I spun the ball round to see the marking on it. It was one of my pokémon! Another one of my friends that the bastards hadn't killed!

Lacey!

I sunk to the floor and burst into happy tears as I held the ball against my chest. I'd been so angry at her for killing Lucy... it wasn't until then that I realised just how much I wanted her to be around.

The thrill of it all made me want to celebrate with another fix.

I shook my head and pressed the button to release her.

But nothing happened.

I pressed it again and again, beginning to worry. What if they'd killed her? What if they'd done something to kill her without destroying her poké ball?

Then I saw the light shining from the button on the poké ball, almost as bright as the light above my head.

I squinted at the poké ball for a long moment before realisation dawned. "You have _got_ to be shitting me," I growled at the poké ball. "You chose _now_ to evolve? _Now_, when I need you to go around killing things? Couldn't you have waited another _day_ at least?"

Scar and Loki both shot me curious looks before they grunted n unison. I sighed as I looked back up at them, nodded and shoved Lacey's poké ball onto my bandolier. She was alive. That was the important thing. Even if she couldn't help me escape, she was still evolving and would be a shiftry soon enough.

I pushed myself to my feet and looked around the corridor. "We need to find Mia as well," I told them both. "Loki, you remember what she looks like, don't you?" He bounced up and down, rasping excitedly – a stark contrast to my sullen nod. "Good. Let us know if you see her when you sneak into a room. Scar-" I turned to the pokémon. "I want you not to go in all guns blazing if Loki says we've found her."

The charmeleon sneered at me and turned away to walk. I snatched his horn from the air, pulled his head close to mine and growled into his ear. "Believe me Scar, I know you're the one helping to keep me alive here. But if you hurt Mia, I'll make sure I hurt you back. Understand?"

He snarled and pulled himself completely free from my grip. Teeth dripping flames, he turned towards me, breathing hot, sulphurous breath in my face. I fought the urge to wince and glared back at him, making a standstill until Loki crawled up the charmeleon's back and dropped his head between ours, chattering at us both.

"Fine," I grunted at the ghost. "I'll play nice, as long as Scar leaves her safe. Kill anyone else; I won't be stopping you in doing that."

The fiery lizard growled at me before he skulked back down the halls, Loki on his head. I sighed to myself and pulled myself along the corridor's walls, hoping to keep myself upright long enough to find freedom.

That was, until I heard the footsteps.

Or rather, I _felt_ them.

The entire floor seemed to shake with every step. Closer and closer they came. I knew that something big was coming. It felt like it would be able to rip us all to pieces. I tried to think; what sort of poisonous pokémon could make such a noise?

My mind kept coming up blank. I couldn't think of anything past finding a stock room and getting a good supply on me. I had my backpack; I could fill it up with their entire stock. It would be enough to let me at least a week, I figured.

A week's worth of fixes. The thought made me smile, even though the floor was still trembling. There was a loud roar, then me and both my pokémon froze in on the spot.

A pokémon came into view. It looked like a rabbit.

A big, purple, scaly rabbit.

With spikes.

That walked on two legs.

I winced and backed away instinctively. The pokémon's tail was a thick as a tree trunk, purple-scaled armour covering its entire body - save for beige scales over its stomach - and a number of large, fearsome spikes grew out of its back.

Its mouth had large fangs that dripped a steaming, black liquid and one large, ferocious looking spike grew out of its forehead.

"Great," I groaned as I backed away from the creature. "A nidoking. Just what we need."

Then the hissing started.

I leapt around to see the other end of the corridor blocked by another pokémon. It was a long black snake with golden markings, two ferocious red fangs dripping from its mouth and a long tail ending with a blade made of bone.

A seviper and a nidoking. Just what everyone would _love_ to run into when trying to escape a gym full of insane torturers.

"Guys," I whispered, my hands shaking as I backed myself into a little corner. "Take out the nidoking. I'll deal with the snake."

They didn't even have time to reply as the nidoking roared and stormed at them. My gaze dropped to it for less than a second. In that time, the seviper pounced.

I screamed and squeezed the trigger, even as I crouched down. The bullet pinged off the wall nearby the snake with no effect, other than pissing off the predator even more.

I winced and pulled myself back up, hands still shaking. I cursed my body and my mind for going through such withdrawls.

The seviper hissed at me, tongue tasting the air. It swayed on the spot, eyes focused on the gun in my hands. At least it knew it was a threat.

Though I forgot about the nidoking on my right.

I felt an explosion of hot air race by my ear. Suddenly the world titled sideways and gravity left me. Just as quickly I hit the floor, arms aching and body groaning in protest of it all.

The seviper pounced again, landing on me with all its weight. I yelped and threw my head backwards, succeeding only in slamming it hard against the floor beneath me.

The snake leant forwards, tongue grazing my cheek as it wrapped its body around me, squeezing me slowly. My breath was short again. My ribs were being crushed. My heart was racing inside my chest, threatening to explode outwards.

As everything faded out of view, I could only think that seviper usually killed things with their bladed tail.

Then I blacked out.

* * *

It felt like I hadn't been out for long at all when water started pouring over my face. I yelped and fought it off, spitting it out of my mouth and barely registering the unsavoury taste as I forced myself to my feet.

"What-?" I whispered as the world came back into focus. I was still in the corridor. The seviper had been cut into pieces – little chunks of the snake were scattered around me, its bladed tail piercing through the top of its severed head. The nidoking was dead too – roasted alive, by the smell of it.

There were large dents on all the walls, the ceiling and the floor, scorch marks and even large slashes through the metal. Both Scar and Loki were looking at me, little smiles on their faces, their bodies covered in scratches and cuts.

"Thanks guys," I said as I picked my gun out from under some of the remains of the seviper. My whole body screamed with the effort, agony dancing through every nerve of my being. I hissed at it all, pressed against my side with my injured hand, only to make more pain flood through me once more.

Then horror flooded through me as the warm water dripped out of my hair.

Neither of my pokémon were capable of watery attacks. The seviper and the nidoking were dead – even if they were alive, they wouldn't have bothered trying to wake me up.

I wiped some of the wetness off my face, stopped and sniffed my fingers.

Then the horrific realisation struck me full force.

I looked down at Loki, who was quite happily picking through the remains of the seviper, choosing bits and pieces to eat. "Say you didn't," I whispered.

There was only one way he could have produced any liquid to wake me up. And it was still warm and dripping from my hair.

He looked at me, sniffed at the air and then threw back his head in a demonic cackle.

I watched him for a moment, then shook my head and carried along the corridor, using the wall to help me walk. "You're evil," I told him. "Through and through."

Scar cut the sableye's laugh short with a sharp hiss. The charmeleon stopped before another door, growled at the metal handle and slapped me with his tail.

I nodded and pressed my hand onto the handle delicately. I flung the door open as Scar snarled and leapt inside, roaring wildly and making the people within scream for their lives.

I poked my head round the doorframe and took a look within. Scar had already killed two of the people, their chests ripped out and their faces burnt beyond recognition. He was already chewing on another's throat as Loki leapt in, scrambled up another's man's back and chomped down on his head.

I saw another man in there and fired my gun at him. It took two tries for me to finally hit him – his head finally exploded on the wall behind him, his face forever frozen in shock and anger.

Scar looked up at me, blood and flames trickling from his moth. He glanced at the gun in my hands, snarled and then turned back to chewing on his victim's chest. Loki was dancing around as blood sprayed from another's man's throat, showering over the celebrating sableye.

And huddled in the corner of the room was Mia, wearing of all things, a black, full length dress.

"Mia!" I shouted as I rushed over to her side, swearing at the handcuffs restraining her and chaining her to the radiator. "Are you alright?"

She looked up at me, briefly surprised and happy before anger clouded her expression. "Do I _look_ alright?" she growled as she shook her restrained arms. I winced and drew back, looking for a key before I heard her sigh from behind me. "S-sorry," she whispered, voice breaking. "I just..."

"It's alright," I told her, though the trembling of my hands and the track marks in my elbow said something else entirely. "We're gonna get out of here."

"My pokémon," she grunted. "I don't know where they are."

I froze halfway through searching a cabinet. I'd killed everyone on my way here, searching them all for my pokémon alone. Scar had burnt enough people beyond all recognition and I'd never stopped to think about Mia's pokémon! The whole time I'd been so fixated on getting my pokémon, finding Mia, escaping the hideout and getting another fix. If I'd stopped a moment to think, I would have realised they'd have likely given her pokémon away, just like mine!

"I... I haven't seen them," I said as I flung the cabinet door shut. "Only these guys. Lacey too," I said as I touched her poké ball. "But she's evolving... of all the times to choose it." I peered in another cabinet, found nothing and slammed it shut, cursing all the while. "Fuck this," I growled and turned away. "Scar, cut those handcuffs, would you?" I smiled at Mia as I pulled out the chains as far as they could go. "Aim for the metal; I don't really want to lose any part of my body and I doubt Mia does either."

We both winced as Scar leapt forwards and sliced through the metallic bindings. The chain snapped in two instantly, glowing slightly orange and smoking as they fell away.

"Thanks," I whispered to my pokémon and patted him on the back. "We need to find a way out," I said as I turned back to Mia. "My pokémon have been split up – distributed between these weirdoes. Yours probably have been too."

She shook her head. "Only one guy has them. He's been taunting me with them the whole time, telling me he'd kill one of them if I didn't tell him what he needed to know." She rubbed her arms, head hanging as her shoulders trembled.

I reached out and pressed a hand to her shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed and knocked my hand away. I froze, confused as she shook again. Finally she looked back up at me, her face straight. "Just... let's get out of here, alright?"

My blood froze as Loki started hissing.

I whipped around to find him glaring at a large shadow on the wall. His ears were pinned back against his head, claws flexing at the strange shadow.

I thought he was just being paranoid.

Then the shadow _moved_.

I couldn't help but yelp a little as it raced up the wall, remaining stationary on the ceiling. Loki peered up at it, growling darkly.

Then the shadow opened its eyes. Two haunting, evil red eyes peered down on us, filling me entirely with fear as they washed over me. Scar growled at the shadow, though even he backed away a little when the eyes fixed on him.

"This isn't good," Mia whispered. "We should leave. _Now_!"

I nodded and kicked the messy remains of someone aside, finding a gun pinned underneath his body. "Here," I said as I pressed it into Mia's hands. "Just point and shoot."

Her hands shook as she rotated the gun. "S-sure."

I checked my own gun, found I only had one bullet left and cursed as I turned around, back towards the door. The whole time, I thought Scar had been growling at the shadow still on the ceiling.

I was wrong.

He was growling at the man in the doorway.

The same man who was in the time traveller's help group.

The same man who was behind this all.

"Well, well, well," he said confidently as I felt Mia wince behind me. "Look what we have here; two rats, a lizard and a ghost. If anything, that's the start of a bad joke."

Scar growled and leapt at him. The man pulled out a gun and pointed it straight at the charmeleon, stopping him instantly. Scar glared at the weapon, whined and backed away from it, protecting his once-injured hip all the while.

"Good pet," the man said. "For an escape attempt, you weren't exactly subtle," he said, turning his gaze to me. "At last count, twenty bodies? That's two-thirds of the people I have working down here, you know?"

"_You_ have working down here?" I whispered to myself. "You mean _you're_ the gym leader here?"

He nodded and waved the gun carelessly. "Well, among other things. The last one retired early. Said he was going to travel the world, seeing if he could teach other pokémon the ways of poisons. Apparently his father had managed to do so with a seedot before he passed away."

I glanced between my pokémon. Loki was still busy with the strange shadow and Scar was hiding away from the gun whenever it pointed at him. I scowled and realised I'd have to make the final bullet in my gun count.

"Shut up," I growled at him. "Enough gloating. You got that girl to lead us here. You got me tortured and so drug-addled that half my brain is constantly telling me to find another fix. Long story short; you're not seeing the end of today."

The man quirked an eyebrow at me. "I doubt that. And what girl would you be talking about? The one that you've knocked out, or the one that you've put so much trust into?"

I stared at him, confused and then looked back to Mia. She looked as confused as me, if not a little angry and frightened of the man. "That's right," he said. "Your little friend here; the one that you've trusted so much... she's working with us."

I snorted. "Bullshit," I spat. "Mind games won't work on me. You really expect me to believe something like that."

I didn't believe the words.

But when the gun pressed into the back of my head, I became a firm believer.

Behind me, I was sure I felt Mia smile a little as she said, "Looks like your hero complex might have fucked you over a little, huh?"


	38. Shock and Betrayal

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Shock and Betrayal

* * *

**

_All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself_**– **Martin Luther, 1483-1546

**-O-O-O-**

"_Only act when you know the entire story."_

- Edward Oak, famous philosopher and ancestor of professor Oak. _(March 19__th__, 2507)_

**-O-O-O-**

Words could not describe how confused I felt at that moment.

"You have _got_ to be shitting me," I whined as I held my hands up in the air, letting my gun drop to the floor.

That was perhaps the only way I could sum up my feelings on the situation.

The man in front of me laughed scornfully. "See, little escape artist? Mind games are for people who have no other way out of a situation – no ace up their sleeve, as it were. I don't need mind games because I've already managed to get your friend here working on my side."

"Great," I hissed and dropped my gaze to the floor. "And here I thought I was doing a nice thing by trying to save you. Good to see you'd have done the same for me."

"This wouldn't have been my first choice of action," Mia said as she walked around me, gun trained on my head the entire time. "But I saw what you were saying when you were high as a kite. You killed that Sinnoan Elite and that Champion in Dewford. I thought that it all might have been bravado, but once I got wind of you just butchering everyone on your way here..." She shook her head as she fell beside the gym leader. "It made me glad that I'd decided to join the winning side."

Scar was still hissing and whining, all at once. I knew he'd been shot once before, but I'd honestly hoped that he'd just use it to become more vicious. It seemed that he didn't care whenever I used one... though I suppose that was only because I never pointed it at him. It also didn't help that I'd already threatened to kill him myself if he tried to harm Mia. But between holding him at gunpoint and distracting Loki with the ghostly shadow, they'd trapped me completely.

The gym leader laughed once more. "You see? Mia here understands the purpose in choosing sides. Good and evil; right and wrong. They're still but sides. She's used her brain and chose the winning side."

"I have," Mia whispered.

Then she blew his brains out.

I flinched as blood and grey matter splashed over me and Scar both. The gym leader dropped to the floor like a rock, blood spilling out all around him and painting the floor a dark shade of red.

I looked over at Mia, my hands still in the air and watched as she glared at the man, dropped the gun and then threw up in a corner of the room. I took the opportunity to take the dead gym leader's gun and pointed it back at the woman who was supposedly my friend.

She held her stomach as she stood back up woozily, took a look at me and leant back against the wall behind her. "I'm not on his side," she told me.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" I asked. Scar stepped forwards, hissing wildly at the dead man's empty head. "That bullet that went through his brain just missed me too. Why shouldn't I think that wasn't intentional?"

She wiped her mouth before she calmly walked over to the body and went to unhook his poké ball belt.

"Hey, hey, hey!" I protested as I waved the gun at her. "You can't just go along and claim a weapon and think that I'm not going to do anything about it! I don't know what the hell's going on here!"

She shook her head and kicked the body viciously in the side. "They're not weapons. They're my pokémon. My _friends_. I'm not going to leave them here, so point that gun at me all you want, but I'll still make sure I protect them. I'm not on his side, trust me."

I glared at her, scrutinising every movement before I finally nodded and motioned for her to collect her pokémon back. "I thought I was your friend. You seemed pretty happy to leave me here," I stated coldly, never once letting my gun stray from her, even if my arms were shaking wildly.

Mia looked up at me and I saw her face cloud in sadness before anger crept it's way in. "Because after everything he did, if he thought there was any chance in hell that I'd suddenly be best buddies with him, he's a moron that deserved to die." She turned away from him and took a step closer to me. "Look, trust me or don't trust me. At the moment, that's not important. That was the only way we could have got out of that situation without having a few gunshots opening us up. I saw the chance and I took it. If you want to have a big debate about it, it's probably best that we leave it until we escape this horrible place."

What she said made sense, even if I didn't fully trust her. I dropped my arms to my sides. "And how do I know you're not going to suddenly leave me in here?"

"Because believe it or not, I'm still your friend," she snapped. "And you must obviously still trust me, or you wouldn't have let me collect my pokémon off his corpse." She stopped and took a deep, long breath before speaking again. "Look, I don't like being in here anymore than you. I want nothing more than to get out of this hellhole, get out of this creepy dress and into my own clothes. Short of someone leaping through a window and rescuing us – which I really doubt is likely to happen – we're going to have to bust our way out of here. Which means really; we're going to have to work together."

I snorted and crossed my arms. "Have your pokémon ever killed anyone before? Because that's the only way we're getting out of here – by killing everyone in the way. Letting them live means that they'll be able to come after us later on. And seeing as you just puked your guts out, I'm guessing that's the first time you've killed anyone."

She took a quick glance out of the doorway before she relaxed a little again. "Being a killer's not exactly something to shout from the rooftops about, you know? I could have happily lived my entire life without killing someone. Did you never stop to think that the people you're killing just _might_ have families back home?" She shook her head and pulled her hair from her face. "Being able to kill... _having _killed... that's not something to be proud of, you do realise?"

I felt myself glaring at her before I could stop myself. "You're right, we should leave this all until we get out of here," I growled, not liking where the conversation was going.. "Did he have any of my pokémon on him?"

Mia ran a hand across her poké balls and shook her head. "Only mine. They're all here."

I flinched. "So why do yours all get to live while one of mine's dead – one that I don't even know the identity of yet?"

She looked upset and pained all at once before she covered it up with a stoic wall. "I made a trade," she whispered in a tone that left no chance for further questions.

"Right," I growled. "Scar, let's go," I said with a wave of my hand. "Loki?" I asked as I turned to the pokémon. He was still sat there, hissing at the shadow. "We really need to leave. Can you not blast that shadow or just ignore it?"

"It's a haunter," Mia said from behind me. "It was _his_ haunter," she said with a quick jab in the dead gym leader's direction. "It won't come after us. I killed its master."

I couldn't take my eyes off the eerie purple shadow. "Don't trainer pokémon usually kill the person who does that?"

Mia's voice was a dark whisper, "Not with the way he treated them." There was an explosion of white light behind me as a poké ball opened up. When the glow faded, Mia's stantler was stood between us, ears flicking lazily. Then, when he saw Mia, he whined and pressed his face against her side, cooing softly and licking at a number of small cuts she had over her shoulders.

"I'll be fine," she promised the pokémon as she patted his face. "Come on," she said to me. "We should really leave. I don't like the thought of killing anyone and none of my pokémon have done it before... but Charles is the most protective of me. If I asked him to, he'd be able to."

I nodded and understood the hidden message. "Scar, take point. Loki, take the rear. You know the drill." I waved for Loki's attention, watched as he finally detached himself away from the haunter and skulked along behind us silently.

"We're finding the rest of my pokémon first," I told Mia as we crept out of the room. She had picked up the gun she'd used to blow out the gym leader's brains, though her hands shook continually. I knew that she wouldn't be able to shoot straight. Though with my own shaking arms and continuous craving for another fix, I doubted I'd be able to hit the wall, even if I was aiming for it.

She nodded even as she glanced around uneasily, every small disturbance making her jump. "Then two questions; do you know where we're going and where are your pokémon?"

I pulled a face. "I'm following Scar," I said without answering her. "He's tracking them. He might not be anything like a growlithe, but in a closed-up space like this, it's pretty easy for him to pick up the smells. If there's anything that smells like me, he'll pick it up easily enough. He's already done so with Loki and Lacey anyway."

"Then let's do this as quickly as we can," she ushered me. "I don't want to spend any more time in this creepy place."

Then the lights all went out.

I cursed as Mia bit down on her yelp. Everything around us managed to disappear into an empty void. The only light came from Scar's tail, bathing us in a fraction of orange light.

"This isn't good," Mia whispered. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, afraid that would disrupt my already unsteady balance. "If they can cut the power, they'll have something that will let them see in the dark. Maybe night vision goggles."

"'_Night vision goggles'?_" I repeated as I tried my best not to laugh. "This isn't a sci-fi film."

"We're breaking out of a criminal gym," she deadpanned. "And we have a charmeleon lighting our way, a sableye creeping behind us, perfectly blended into the dark and a haunter silently stalking us through the corridors. Sounds like the plot to most bad horror films to me."

That time, I did roll my eyes. It cost me though; I tripped over my own feet and fell into the wall beside me. I groaned as I pressed myself off it, trying to recover what little dignity I had. Then one part of her analogy hit me, "The haunter's still following us?" I really didn't want to be anywhere near a ghost – other than Loki – in the dark. The last time that had happened was in Dewford... the last thing I needed on top of everything was another headless ex-pokémon stalking me.

"She keeps talking to me," Mia said. "Telling me to take her with me, giving me small hints as to how to get out of this place."

I stared at her blurry, dark figure for a moment before I buried my face in my hands. "You have _got_ to be kidding me," I groaned. "The friendly ghost is giving us directions to freedom after we killed its master? That doesn't sound like a trap at _all._"

I saw her glance behind us. "That's why I'm ignoring it."

Scar hissed at us both as he turned around. I flinched at shot my pokémon a guilty look for a moment before I caught myself and crept behind him. Satisfied we were following him again, the fiery lizard turned around and began creeping through the halls again.

Then the screaming started.

I flinched as my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I heard Mia nearly scream and her stantler snort at her. Loki chittered happily behind us all.

I poked Scar on the shoulder and motioned for him to move forwards. He crept through the corridor without a sound, body pressed low and his neck stretched out. I glanced back and grabbed Mia's arm, only for her to snatch it back and begin to shake once more. I fought past the confusion and motioned for her to follow behind me as best I could in the shallow light.

Loki meanwhile was bouncing happily behind us all, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

I skulked behind Scar, trusting him to lead us in the right direction. The screams were getting louder and louder. My heartbeat was getting faster as my brain wondered just what was going on. Did they have more people here? Had they all escaped too? Did they cause the power outage?

Scar stopped just before a turn of a corner and growled deeply. The screams sounded like they were in my ears. They were coming from round the corner. My heart was racing. I took a deep breath and poked my head round the corner.

I saw two people and ducked back with a stifled yelp.

"Two of them," I grunted, barely audible. "One's clutching his chest; he's the one screaming. The other's flailing uselessly, he doesn't know what to do. Loki, you take him out."

I didn't even see the ghost disappear before there was a sharp scream and the smell of blood. I took that as my cue and spun round the corner, gun trained and ready, Scar hissing by my side and ready to pounce.

The one clutching his chest was still screaming – he hadn't even noticed us. The other man was on the floor, his throat torn out and a number of slashes across his chest. Loki sat atop him, happily tearing into his flesh.

The other man suddenly screamed louder than ever.

Then something burst _out_ of his chest.

I fell back over myself at the shock of it all, the creature hissing wildly as it flew out of the man's chest. Scar growled back at the thing, only to stop suddenly as it flew around us, hissing wildly and discharging electricity.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, not just from static electricity. The sound was so familiar, the electricity a large hint as to what it was.

"Erra?" I whispered.

Bright light filtered out around us. I flinched and pressed an arm over my eyes, spots of colour dancing in my vision, even underneath my eyelids.

When I opened them, I was still dumbstruck by what I saw.

On the wall before us was a magnemite – _my_ magnemite. I knew it was Erra, but she clung to the wall, her mandibles dripping with blood and saliva as she hissed wildly.

I felt my heart sink and soar all at once. Erra was alive. The thought of that made a little grin come to my face. But then just as quickly, I realised what it meant; either Sophie or Xander was dead.

I felt my face fall, but pulled it back into a soft smile as I approached my pokémon. Her wings flicked out, electricity dancing off them and I flinched, pulling my hand back instantly.

"Erra?" I whispered, trying to get through to her. "It's me. Can't you see that?"

She looked at me, one beady eye staring at me as she fell silent.

Then she leapt at me.

I yelped and ducked instinctively. I felt a little breeze pass over me and the sound of electricity crackling through something, another scream and then smelt something like burning flesh.

I peeked my eyes open and found Erra flying above another man dressed completely in black, a large contact mark colouring his face to match his uniform.

I nearly had a heart attack when the magnemite flew down and tore a chunk out of his neck. The man didn't even flinch – I knew then he was dead for sure – yet I couldn't help myself as I saw my normally timid pokémon tear into what used to be a person, eating as noisily as Scar or Loki.

"Erra?" I whispered again, approaching her cautiously. "What happened to you?"

She hissed again and I stopped instantly. Loki, however, wasn't as easily deterred; he skulked around her, sniffing curiously. She spread her wings and buzzed angrily at him, stopping as soon as he growled back. He stopped an inch away from her, mumbled to himself and then raced back to me, flailing his arms above his head.

"What-?" I gasped as he leapt at me and slashed one of my sleeves clean off. I snatched my arm away from danger instantly, though the sableye only leapt at me again, pointing wildly at my elbow and grunting continually. It was only when he mimed the marks covering my skin that everything clicked in my brain.

Mia, it seemed, drew the same conclusion. "Looks like we weren't the only ones they had some fun with."

I shook my head mutely as I grabbed my torn sleeve, wrapped it around my hand and felt around in what remained of the stomach in the man Erra burst out of. When I finally found her poké ball I cleaned it as quickly as I could, stomach acid burning away at the cloth and threatening my hands.

Poké ball mostly clean, I placed it back on my bandolier and took another look at Erra chewing on a corpse's throat, then another glance at the huge hole in the dead man's chest.

"I was wrong before," I said with a shake of my head. "This is really starting to play out like a sci-fi film."

* * *

It felt like escaping that place was taking forever.

I wasn't sure whether it was the fact that I was craving for another fix, that my heart didn't stop beating at a few miles a minute or just that I wanted to find my last surviving pokémon and get the hell out of there, but for whatever reason, it was just taking forever.

We'd only found one more guard and killed him. Or more, Erra had flown straight through his face and burst out of the back of his skull. It took me a good moment to actually process that when it happened – even a little while later, my brain was still trying to make sense of it.

I didn't know whether to be happy she'd suddenly become such a bloodthirsty creature, or because she wasn't attacking me like that. All I knew was that if they'd injected her too, like Loki told me they had, it was likely the effects of whatever it was would probably wear off.

And also, I wondered why the man had swallowed her poké ball in the first place.

I pushed the thoughts out of my mind as I wandered aimlessly through the halls, following Scar in the hopes that I could find my final pokémon.

"Come here!" Mia hissed from behind me. I stopped and turned round, finding her stood in front of another metallic door, this one imprinted with a name. I couldn't quite see what it was, as it lied just outside the light Erra and Scar were generating, but then I couldn't see the door at all after Mia's stantler kicked the door clean off its hinges with his hind legs.

I winced as the metal door bounced over the floor, screeching wildly and making enough sound to alert everyone nearby.

"This is-was- his office," Mia said as she stepped into the room and over the crumpled door on the floor. She stopped only to glance at the name before she shook her head and stomped into the room. "Ben Tso. The person who I..." she faltered and took a breath before she opened the metallic desk in the middle of the room. "Are you going to help me see if our other stuff is in here or not?" she growled at me.

I nodded quickly and motioned for Loki and Scar both to stand guard outside as I stepped into the room. Erra flew in circles above me, almost like a moth around a lightbulb.

"Here," Mia said just before she tossed something at me. I caught it reflexively and stared at it in amazement, my brain slowly playing catch up.

My phone! I was so happy to have it back in my hands again; my one link to everyone back with me once more. Mia called my attention and tossed me my wallet afterwards, although it was lacking any money, it still had everything else in there.

There was another loud crash as Charles kicked open something again. I stared in amazement at the wall-safe, loaded with what seemed to be at least triple the most amount of money I'd ever seen before.

"We might as well take this," Mia growled as she pulled it out and placed it on the desk. She made a quick count and split it into two, sliding one pile across the table to me. "Take it," she said as she glanced around the room, found a bag and stuffed her share inside. "After everything we've been through, I don't think there's anything wrong with robbing them."

I stared at the money for a long moment. "Are you trying to pay me off?" I asked, looking back up to meet her face. The stantler behind her didn't look very impressed; every breath it took was blowing Mia's hair around her face and making her more annoyed by the second.

"Is this some attempt of trying to get my favour back?" I pointed to the money on the table without breaking eye contact. "You pretend – or not – to betray me, then get back in my good books by paying me off?"

Her arms shook before she dropped the bag on the floor. "There's a lot you don't know; there seems to be some things either you can't remember or you're just pretending not to. I didn't betray you. I did what I had to in order to get us out of that situation. You're not one to talk about betraying people!" I didn't even have time to ask her what she meant before she turned around and knocked a filing cabinet over. "I'm getting out of here and I'm taking some money to try and buy back everything they've taken from me, maybe even help me forget a little. If you don't want your share, I'll happily take it from you."

"That's alright," I said with a quick shake of my head, shovelling the money into my bag. "I just wanted to know what was going through your mind and really, how you even knew about this office in the first place."

She glared at me and shook her head as she walked angrily out of the room. "Don't even go there. I'll explain everything later, when we're free, but you've got some answers to give yourself."

I felt goose bumps rush all over my arms at the sound of her voice, in anything but a good way. I shook myself as I turned my gaze upwards and shielded my eyes from the light Erra was producing. "Don't suppose you've got any idea what's going on here?"

She settled on the ceiling, spread her wings and hissed at me once more. I sighed and looked back to the floor. "Thought not," I grumbled to myself.

It was only by chance that I stared at the safe before I left. When I did, my heart stopped and my hands shook of their own volition.

_Stacks_ of little glass vials, all carrying the same clear, colourless liquid within. A little pile of syringes laid tauntingly next to them, glistening in Erra's light and daring me to come closer and try them out.

"We need to move," Mia hissed from outside the room. "Staying still like this is going to get us caught!"

I grumbled to myself about how she couldn't think of taking charge, seeing as she'd only killed one person so far – it was me and my pokémon doing all the work. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind as I stared at the taunting substances in the safe, my mouth dry and a tingly feeling in my stomach.

I moved towards the safe with my eyes trained completely on the door. Once I was sure that Mia wasn't going to poke her head back around the doorframe, I grabbed everything I could from the safe and threw it all into my bag, feeling immeasurably lighter and hungry for it all at once.

My elbow itched in anticipation before I finally shut the bag and tossed it back over my shoulders. I wanted nothing more than to sit there and shoot it all up at once, but knew I had to try and get out of there first.

However reluctant I may have been to do that, I managed to tear myself away from the thoughts and left the room.

After all, with all of that in my bag, I considered that would be an adequate celebration when I escaped.

* * *

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes after we'd trashed the office that we heard more screams.

Unlike the past few times though, these screams were for help.

Mia and I both froze on the spot, our pokémon following suit and waiting around with palpable irritation. I watched Erra fly around and caught a large shadow at the very edges of her light. The damned haunter was still following us, though once it noticed I saw it, it quickly retreated back into the shadows.

"We should see what's going on," Mia said with a glance towards the sound of the screams. "It could be someone that really needs help."

"Or is could be someone trying to lead us into a trap," I pointed out. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, tried my best to ignore the sound before finally I let out a frustrated growl. "Fine, we'll go see what's going on."

I didn't like it, but I couldn't help but think that if the roles were reversed, I'd have wanted nothing more than for the mystery people breaking out of the pseudo-prison to help me.

It turned out prison was a pretty accurate description of what we found too. A row of cells lined the walls on either end of another corridor, six to the left and right walls, three at the very end of the corridor.

All of them were empty.

Apart from one.

There was a single man inside, wearing nothing but a stained white vest and equally stained grey jogging bottoms which hung off his emaciated frame. His eyes were sunken and his hair was brown, greasy and a mess.

When I caught the track marks on his elbow, I quickly realised how close I'd become to being something like him. My injured hand throbbed, almost in order to draw me back to the world.

"You've gotta get me out of here," the man rasped, his voice scratchy and with a slight Hoennese accent.

I glanced around the corridors, expecting someone or something to leap out and attack us. Scar and Loki both growled and crept along the prison cells, poking their heads into each abandoned holding. Erra clung to the ceiling above us, illuminating the majority of the corridor for us, yet still hissing at the man inside the cell.

"I feel like I've seen you before," Mia said as she stepped closer to the man's cell. He flinched almost imperceptibly before he broke into a small coughing fit.

"Maybe on the news?" he suggested once he'd finished coughing. "I've been down here about a year – maybe you saw a missing person thing?"

Mia squinted at him, tapping her chin before finally she shrugged and turned away. "Maybe," she said, clearly unconvinced. I nodded and stared at the man, wondering if he seemed familiar at all to me. It wasn't surprising that I'd never seen him before in my life.

"I think it was the news," Mia said from behind me. "But I can't remember exactly what it w-"

Her voice broke off instantly, muffled by something. I spun around and found another one of the gym's guards behind her, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other holding a knife to her throat.

He didn't even get to speak before Charles skewered him on his antlers. Mia yelped and jumped away, clutching at the small cut on her neck as her stantler roared at the impaled man on his antlers. The pokémon reared up brought his head down heard on the wall, squashing the man against the metal with a sickening splat and a crunch.

"T-thanks," Mia whispered as her pokémon nudged her shoulder, seemingly oblivious or uncaring towards the chunks of meat and blood dripping from his antlers.

"I think he was the last one," the man in the cell rasped. I turned back around and stared at him, one eyebrow raised and my patience blatantly thin. "There were eight of them in here earlier, talking about how most of their co-workers had been murdered," he explained quickly. "One of them suggested making a run for it, four others agreed. One of them said that if they were going to run, he was going to report them for it. They snatched a poké ball from his belt and stuffed it down his throat. He looked like he was going to choke until he started screaming – I think he accidentally triggered the release mechanism."

Above us, Erra hissed once more. I nodded silently and decided that answered at least one of my questions.

The man glanced apprehensively at the dead man. "Five of them just ran out of the building. They decided that their jobs weren't worth their lives."

That left me with mixed feelings. I wouldn't have to kill anyone else in our escape, though five people missing meant that five people in the outside world possibly knew everything about me; everything that I'd confessed when I was being pumped full of drugs.

"Can you let me out?" the man begged us. "I know the direction they went in to escape; I can lead you there. _Please_. I haven't seen the sunlight in over a year. I haven't been outside this cell in that long. These people kept me locked up here... I just want to be free."

I nodded and gestured for Scar to open the cage. Mia glanced at me as she rubbed her neck, smearing blood over her skin.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she whispered. "What if he's working with these people?"

I settled her with a flat look. "I'm still taking that risk with you."

She flinched and dropped her gaze, though I saw the way her arms trembled with the slightest trace of anger.

"Don't try anything funny," I warned the man as he stepped frailly outside of his cell. "I've got three pokémon ready to tear you to pieces the moment I think you're up to something."

He gulped nervously, nodding excessively. "Shall we check that guy for pokémon then?" he suggested. "We might need something else to get out of here." He looked up and squinted into the dark. "If they've cut the power, I'm guessing all their doors will be locked too. Walking out of the front door covered in blood and everything else probably isn't a good idea, either."

I took a subtle glance at my clothes, painted liberally with blood and couldn't help but agree with him. I turned away and tossed the crushed remains of the dead man over, ignoring the distasteful snort Charles gave in its direction.

I barely even heard Mia try to reassure it once I saw the poké balls on the man's belt. All the force in the world couldn't have stopped me from leaping at it and reclaiming one of the balls for myself. I nearly wept as I saw the markings across the red metal and released the pokémon at once.

I didn't even wait for the bright white light to recede before I threw myself at the pokémon and wrapped my arms around it.

The last of my living pokémon. I was finally reunited with it and nothing could have torn me away.

Confused, all the pokémon could do was grunt in analysis of the situation. I couldn't help but burst into maniacal laughter, which wasn't helped at all when the pokémon finally sprayed me with water.

"It's good to see you Xander," I said as I wiped my eyes. He looked up at me, frowned and spat even more water over me, washing most of the grime away. It was only when it began to leak over the floors that I realised just how bad I must have smelt.

Loki effectively stopped the lombre from cleaning on me when he bounced onto Xander's back, nestled himself quite happily within the large leaf and began to chatter happily at the pokémon.

Watching them reuinited, I couldn't help but feel like some large weight had been lifted completely from my shoulders.

Then just as suddenly, the weight came crashing back when I realised what it all meant.

Sophie was dead. My stupid, silly, curious bird who had a habit of terrorising business women was dead, all because I'd refused to give a few answers that would have stopped her poké ball from being crushed.

She was dead.

And I didn't even have anything to bury or cremate.

"We should really start to leave," the prisoner told us as he inched nervously past my pokémon. "We need to get out of here."

"Yeah," I muttered despondently. I kept my gaze to the ground and stared only at the endless concrete floors until Xander nudged my leg and knocked me off balance. He looked up at me as I stumbled and badly recovered my footing, croaked and spat a small globule of water in my face.

I managed a tiny smile at his attempts to cheer me up. "I'm happy to have you back," I told him. "But Sophie's dead. I've just realised that."

The lombre stopped, almost as if he were silently mourning the pokémon before he nudged me in my leg and forced me forwards once more. I understood that we had to leave and seemingly, so did he.

I managed it all of three steps before pain exploded in my head. I cried out and dropped to the floor, holding my skull and hoping desperately my brains wouldn't leak out of the sides. I barely heard Mia scream over the pain I felt and managed to crawl into something resembling the foetal position as the ground beneath us started to shake like wild.

I wasn't sure when it stopped, only that my heart was still running a marathon and my brain felt like it was going to explode. I thought for a second the prisoner had pulled some trick on us, though I saw him leant against the wall, clearly in as much pain as me. All of the pokémon we had out were also grunting in pain, save for Loki, who was bouncing about, hissing wildly and trying to find out just exactly what was happening.

He barely managed to scramble away in time when a big, brown clawed foot nearly squashed him. I turned my gaze up as far as I could, finding before us a large brown pokémon with two legs as thick as tree trunks. Its skin seemed to fold over itself, like the bark on a palm tree. One large, angry looking, egg-shaped face stared out over us all, with a number of fern-like leaves sprouting from behind it, making it look even more like a palm tree. Next to its head were two coconut shaped objects, the same colour as its head, though lacking any sort of expression.

I wasn't even given time to think as a voice exploded in my mind.

_**[You killed my master!]**_

I groaned with the sound of it, dimly recalling something about the gym leader having a psychic. I saw Loki leap at the pokémon, only for it to kick him aside like a discarded toy.

Then curiously, the head seemed to lose all traces of anger. _[I thank you,]_ it grunted as the pain slowly faded from my head. _[My master did intolerable things in the name of what humans call justice. He had moved past all forms of redemption, though his hold over my capture device prevented me from putting him out of the world's misery.]_

I groaned as I pressed myself to my feet. "If you're here to thank us, why the hell did you make it feel like people were ripping my brain to pieces?"

The pokémon shook itself like a tree in the breeze. _[I could not be sure if you would kill me on your path to freedom, as you have to many others.]_ I rolled my shoulders self consciously and tried to pretend it wasn't me who'd slaughtered them all.

In a way I was right; my pokémon had killed quite a few; Mia and her stantler had both killed a person each too.

The pokémon before us turned away and kicked a large steel shutter open with a loud crash. _[This way holds the location where the humans stored their machines to travel. You shall find a way out through here. I would advise you to leave, as I plan to do so myself. Thank you humans, know that we shall not meet again.]_

Then in a flash, the pokémon was gone. We all sat there, pokémon and human alike, confused as anyone.

Finally it was the prisoner who got back to his feet. "The exeggutor must have been talking about the garage; we can find a car and escape this hellhole!" He nearly leapt a foot into the air – though it looked like he would have, had he the energy to do so. "We can leave here, completely bypass the town and any people and be home free!"

"Why would you want to avoid the town?" Mia asked before I could. She leant heavily on her stantler, holding the side of her head with a scowl on her face. "The people too? Why are you so afraid of them?"

The man pulled at the vest that hung off his body. "I just don't know who's in league with these people or not. And to be honest, I really don't want to take my chances."

I folded my arms and looked around. "I don't trust that pokémon though. Giving us the way out so easily? It seems like a trap."

"Trap or no, it's a direct way out," the prisoner argued. "We should take it."

I didn't like it, but I had to agree with him. We either took that way out, or we tried to find another way out of the gym. I cursed as we followed the prisoner through the broken steel shutters and into a big, dark parking lot, filled with a number of cars.

I glanced around the place, barely registering Mia saying that she was going to find a car for us to escape in. There was just something about the place that didn't seem right at all, something that I didn't quite like.

It was only when all of my pokémon growled that I realised something was really wrong.

When a muk dropped down from the ceiling, I decided that we well and truly were screwed.

The huge mound of thick, putrid purple ooze slithered before us, rotting garbage and part of a concrete slab slowly festering away in the pokémon's filthy body.

It drew in a huge breath and roared at us all, spraying us with foul smelling, rotting fluid and making my eyes water and my nose scream in agony.

I'd barely even managed to give the order for my pokémon to attack when a jeep ploughed through the pokémon and splattered it everywhere. I leapt back as chunks of the muk rained down in front of me, slowly oozing and eating its way through the concrete floor. I managed to recall Scar and keep him away from the remains of the very flammable methane monster and watched as the jeep swerved to a stop. Mia leapt out of the driver's side, glanced at the slowly melting face of the vehicle before she shrugged innocently.

"What?"

I blinked and shook my head. "Nothing. Let's go," I said as I recalled the remainder of my pokémon. I couldn't wait to see the back of the place and never go anywhere near there again.

Except to complete the plan I had forming in my mind.

It was night when we left, but even though there was a slight chill to the air, we all had our windows wound as far down as they could go, each of us delighted in being able to taste fresh air again.

When Mia stopped, I made sure that she'd wait for me before I walked the five minutes back to the gym. I stood atop the road that wound downhill towards the gym's garage and felt a little smile crawl onto my face.

No doubt the muk would still be in the building, slowly filling it with methane. There were also the extractors lined up on the side of the building, designed to take out all the poisonous – and highly flammable – gasses.

All it would take would be a little fire to make the whole place go up in flames.

I let out Scar and let him sniff the air curiously before he bumped my shoulder with his head. I smiled at him, patted his skull and then pointed towards the gym.

"Burn it down," I told him and watched as whole place caught fire. The roars of the flames and the distant sound of sirens kept me company until I was certain nothing would remain of the damned place. I finally tore myself away from the burning building, recalled Scar and made my way back to the car.

"Buckle up," Mia advised me, gripping the steering wheel hard. "Police and every other form of law and public service are on their way. Last thing we need now is to be linked to that place by the police or the news."

I nodded and fell silently back into my seat as we tore off down the road, happy to see the back of that damned town.

* * *

It was nearly two hours later that we found ourselves near the mountains around Meteor Falls. We'd left the car nearby and set up a fire near the apex of a large hill. From there we could see all the way down into Fallarbor; to the gym that was still slightly on fire.

I grunted a little laugh to myself. "Imagine what they'll think when they find all those tunnels underneath the gym. Wonder how many other gyms have something similar?"

"I doubt they used them for the same purposes," Mia hissed as she warmed her feet by the fire. We'd only managed to feed ourselves and our pokémon – it tasted like the best food there ever was – and were waiting until we could travel again before visiting somewhere and buying new clothes. None of us liked it, yet we couldn't do much about it.

The prisoner – who's name we'd found out was Noah – seemed to like the idea even less. He seemed reluctant to go anywhere near a town or anywhere with people, but we had no idea why. As Mia and I relaxed by the fire, our pokémon surrounding us and all asleep, he slept alone in the car.

"Why did he think you were going to go against me?" I asked the sky more than Mia. I heard her grunt acknowledgement, yet I still refused to look at her. "Before, in the gym, when you did the whole supposedly pretence of turning on me; why did he seem to think you were on his side before that?"

Even though she was only sat opposite me, her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. "Because I told him that I'd work against you."

I stared at her, unable to even move through shock. I knew that I should have grabbed my gun and shot her then and there, yet somehow, I couldn't find the nerve to do it. It had nothing to do with the fact that she had her pokémon surrounding her – coupled with the haunter, still hiding in the shadows and refusing to leave – but more that I was too shocked to act.

She sighed. "Aren't you going to ask why?"

I nodded dumbly and swallowed. "Why then?" I asked, more confused than angry.

Her eyes were sharp as she met my gaze. "Because I saw you promise to kill me."

I flinched and drew a blank all at once. "I don't know what you're talking about!" I yelped and tried to leap to my feet. "I never said anything like that!"

She snorted scornfully. "They made me watch some of the tapes while they were getting the information out of you. I saw it all, even if you don't remember any of it. When they asked what you'd do if you ever found out I knew all there is to know about me, you told them you'd kill me."

Icy horror sunk into my stomach. "B-but, that wasn't me saying that!" I protested. "That was the drugs talking! I was saying anything to get out of that situation!"

"You were saying it to get another fix," Mia said, devoid of emotion. If anything, it scared me that she seemed so calm about it all. "You might not have meant it then. I don't know, I can't say for sure. But put yourself in my position; I was in some horrible underground torture-lab, having people ask me all sorts of ridiculous questions about you, questions which quite frankly, are impossible. They told me all these things that you've done, then they kept telling me that it wouldn't be long before you killed me too. I thought they were making it all up. I thought they were just trying to screw with me. Then I saw them talking to you. I saw you admit it all. I saw you promise to kill me. I saw one of my best friends threaten to kill me! Do you know what that feels like?"

She was starting to shout by that point, though I couldn't blame her. "I saw the one person who I thought would help me no matter what, promise the people who were torturing me that he would kill me!" She was on her feet, screaming at me over the fire, tears spilling from her eyes. "So I did what I thought would help me survive! I told them I'd work with them, because I was afraid that _you_ were going to kill me!

"It was only when you came to rescue me that I realised it was probably only the drugs talking," she said, hugging herself and drawing away from the fire. "When you showed up, I realised that maybe, just like me, you were saying something to make something worse stop. So when the gym leader gloated about how I was supposedly on side, I used it to my advantage. Even if I had joined their side anyway, I still would have killed him after what he did."

I fell back to the floor and sat there, numb with shock. I couldn't blame her for any of it, I realised. I'd threatened to kill her in some drug-craving haze and she'd seen it all. She might have felt the urge to betray me, but that was only because I'd no doubt shattered her trust in me first.

"I'm... I'm sorry," I whispered, staring at the floor. "I didn't mean... I mean, if I'd known-"

"If you'd known, we wouldn't have been able to get out of there," Mia said with a small smile. "But it's all gone and done now. We should just forget everything that ever happened in there."

"Sophie died in there," I muttered mutinously. "I can't just forget that. One of my pokémon died in there, my hand is still throbbing and stinging like hell and they tried getting me hooked on drugs." I didn't need to mention that they'd succeeded at that part. "I can't forget any of that. How did _you_ manage to get away with all your pokémon still alive anyway?"

She stared at the fire, eyes unmoving. "I made a trade," she whispered robotically. "When they found out I didn't actually know anything about what they were asking me about, they gave up on that line of questioning. Then the leader came to speak with me privately. He mentioned something about a girl who worked with them, about how she didn't have what it took to succeed."

I was reminded about trilby-girl. For a moment I thought back to her, lying in that little torture room as the entire building burnt down around her. It made a little smile want to grow on my face at her getting just what she deserved for trapping me in there in the first place.

Mia poked at the ground angrily. "He told me I had that quality... if I was willing to..." she trailed off as her lip curled in distaste. "Anyway, I told him exactly what he could do. Then he told me that every time I refused, he'd kill one of my pokémon. I couldn't let that happen... so I did what I had to do to make sure he didn't kill them."

I didn't need to ask what it was he'd done. It was so obvious; I wanted to smack myself for not realising it sooner. The way she recoiled from every touch, the fact that she was in a dolled up dress and restrained when I found her... even the way she held herself and looked so repulsed with herself.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled again as I closed my injured hand, feeling pain spike up through me. It was a lot less than I deserved, I figured. "I got you into such a mess. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Maybe," she said with a shrug. "Or maybe if you hadn't of been there, you wouldn't have been able to help me escape that place."

I didn't have the heart to tell her it _was_ my fault in the first place. If I hadn't kissed that girl, then turned up with Mia, she'd have never been caught up in all of it.

"Don't ask me to help," she said suddenly. I glanced across the fire at her, completely confused by her words. "I saw everything you said; about how you're supposedly from the future," she clarified. She snorted to herself as she stared at her hands. "'From the future'. Can't believe I'm saying something like that seriously. But if you are – if that's true – I don't want to be involved with whatever big mission you were talking about."

I felt my stomach roll over itself again and again. "I don't, I mean I-"

"I've watched five of my pokémon die. I'm not going to watch anymore," she said, resolute. "Whatever you're doing, for whatever reasons, it's dangerous. Those people in that gym made that obvious. If people like that are gonna be around to try and stop you... I don't want to get involved. I've killed someone and I've got to live with that. You killed all those people in that gym, yet all I can think is: what about their families? Did they know what they were getting up to? I've got to carry on, with those thoughts always running through my mind. I can't help you with whatever you've got to do. I can be your friend, but _please_, don't ever ask me to make these thoughts worse."

I wanted to reach over and hug her. I tried, yet she still pushed me away. Instead I just sat next to her, solemn and sincerely apologetic. "I won't," I promised her. "I'm sorry, you know that, right?"

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I know," she told me. "Just make sure whatever you do... try to keep friendly casualties to a minimum, huh?"

I nodded silently as she crept over to her stantler, curled up beside him and tried to sleep. The pokémon snorted and moved himself around her, seemingly protecting her his own child.

I stared at them a moment longer before I rummaged through my bag. My 'friendly causalities', as Mia put it, were already high enough. The wurmple, the makuhita, Sophie, arguably Adryan and his pokémon, then no doubt ruining Mia's mental state.

I thought about it all as I found what I wanted and walked a short distance away from my pokémon. I couldn't help but think only about that until I shot up and made it all fade away into addiction-sating ecstasy.

* * *

When I came to the next day, I found a neat little package waiting for me by the remains of the fire. It was nothing special; a purple shirt, some black jeans, black boots and a dark purple beanie. I stared at them all, put them all on, save for the beanie and wondered just why Mia had decided to give me such clothes to wear.

It turned out her theories were that they would suit me. I didn't want to tell her I really didn't think they would, nor were they suitable for travelling. Instead I thanked her and tried to ignore the fierce itch that my elbow tormented me with. Though I did point out since she was dressed in a purple tank top, black jeans and boots, we looked far too much like we were wearing his-and-hers outfits.

It really did upset me that she barely acknowledged it, rather than hitting me, like I knew she would have before everything in the gym.

I saw Noah a little while later and told him we'd be heading towards Rustboro soon enough. He didn't seem happy with the idea, though accepted it and mumbled something about looking around the mountains before he left me.

When Mia left to go back to town for something she claimed was urgent, I found myself alone once more. I let out my pokémon and found quite quickly that Erra was still rather bloodthirsty – every pokémon that didn't belong to Mia or I was quickly attacked, if not torn apart. I had to recall her and leave her to stew in her poké ball until we could get to another pokémon centre.

I let my other pokémon run about and amuse themselves as I switched on my phone after having left it charging in the car all night.

I couldn't help but wince at the number of missed calls and texts from Chris. It was obvious she was furious – I'd never seen heard of half of the curses she used against me in some of her voicemails. There were even some messages from Adryan asking about it all. I decided to ignore them all for a little while as I found the one number I wanted. When I rang it though, I found only the voicemail waiting for me.

I cursed before the little beep sounded. "Hey, Erica, it's me. You remember that option you gave me? About making things... disappear? Well I think there's something I need that little group to do. Poison gym. The one on the news. There's reasons for that; I'll give them to you if you need them. I need those people you were talking to sort it out. Thanks, I guess."

I hung up the phone and felt stupid and concerned all at once. There was the chance that someone could trace my call, even playback the message I left her, but I doubted anyone would be chasing after me so soon. Added to that, I really doubted Erica would be stupid enough to leave incriminating messages lying around.

I stuck my hands behind myself and wondered just what to do until I saw Mia driving back. The dark blue car we'd stolen the night before screeched to a halt and almost instantly Mia had leapt out of it, charging up the hill without even shutting the door behind her. She carried a few papers in her hand, all crunched up and her face had an unbridled look of fury etched upon it.

"What's going on?" I asked, only for her to brush straight past me, on the warpath.

"Where is he?" Mia growled, shaking with rage. "Where's Noah?"

I shrugged. "I haven't seen him since just after you left. Why?"

She growled once more and shoved the papers into my chest. I took the off her and stared down at them, surprised to see a face staring back at me. The man in the picture had shorter hair, a rounder face, but it was unmistakeably Noah.

"You know that prisoner we saved?" Mia hissed as she paced back and forth. "Well it turns out he's a wanted criminal. I _knew_ I'd seen his face somewhere, I just couldn't remember where! His trial fell apart and then he just disappeared over a year ago; about the same time he told us he was kept down in that gym."

I shrugged and handed the papers back to her. "So he's a criminal? He was still being held there regardless."

She stopped pacing and glared at me. "He liked little _girls._ His trial fell apart a year ago because of a technicality, then he upped and vanished. Don't you get it? The justice system couldn't put him away, so those people in the gym gave him exactly what he deserved! They said you were a murderer; what's to stop me thinking that they were good guys?"

I forgot all about the papers as I dropped them on the floor. "We helped him escape? After he did things like that?" I felt sick. "We need to find him. I'll finish what those people started. I'll kill him myself." I started off instantly in the direction I remembered Noah taking, adamant that I'd tear him apart with my bare hands.

"No wonder why he didn't want to go back to anywhere with people," Mia said as she chased after me. "The things he did; he'd be lynched by a mob if they ever caught sight of him."

I stopped walking. "I don't think they'll need to," I said and pointed forwards. There was a big oak tree straight ahead of us and swinging from one of the branches was Noah, shoelaces from the shoes Mia had bought him tied around his neck.

I took one look Noah's corpse and turned away. "We need to leave," I told Mia. "We should get away from here. People will find him soon enough and I really don't want to be associated with letting a kiddie-fiddle out of his prison."

She nodded. "I'll get the car-"

"No car," I growled with a shake of my head. "We stole that from the gym. They'll be looking for that now. We'll hike from here to Rustboro – far as anyone else is concerned, we're just two trainers travelling the country."

She nodded and we made a quick escape after that. I recalled all my pokémon but Scar and let him plod alongside us as we climbed through Meteor Falls. I began to think about what I'd do once we reached Rustboro, even what I'd say to Chris to apologise.

Anything to stop me from thinking that I might have massacred a gym full of the good guys.


	39. Limits

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Limits

* * *

**

_The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes _~ Charles Swindoll

**-O-O-O-**

"_The worst thing about people with problems; they only ever see what's affecting them. They lash out at everyone around them, just because they can't possibly understand. If you're ever in this situation, you have to be careful, for one wrong action… one wrong word and everything is destroyed, be it friendship, love, or something else."_

- Si Colojeest. Criminal profiler. _(January 3rd, 3001)_

**-O-O-O-**

The escape we made through Meteor Falls was in a number of ways, so much worse than escaping that damned underground complex at the gym. While we weren't randomly bumping into people operating a clandestine torture facility, we jumped at every small sound, fearing that it was someone that knew what we'd done, or possibly one of the five missing people that just vanished into thin air before I could kill them too.

Added to that, it wasn't exactly helping that Erra was tearing through anyone that we came across. Even Mia's pokémon weren't safe from the drug-addled magnemite. I decided to only let her out periodically, allowing her to tear through large numbers of random wild pokémon, easing the slack for the rest of us and at least creating an air of carnage around us that seemed to put off most of the other wild pokémon from attacking us – the larger ones still came after us and the scavengers seemed to be feasting on everything we left in our wake.

"I don't like this," I remarked about a day into our excursion. Erra had torn through a number of golbat – one of which Mia's lairon was quite content to eat, rather noisily.

"I don't complain when your pokémon feel the need to eat the carnage," Mia pointed out with a frown, barely perceptible in the low light. "If you've got a problem with it, maybe you should just keep such thoughts to yourself, huh?"

I looked over at her sharply, surprised and confused for a split second. "Not that," I said with a shake of my head. "It can carry on for all I care, at least it's some sort of noise, other than the little rocks falling down here and there when we've got something stalking us for the dead presents we leave them. What I don't like is Erra's behaviour… it reminds me of something or another, but I just can't think clearly enough to realise what it is."

Of course, suffering from withdrawal symptoms from whatever drug I had in my bag, in addition to the lack of sleep and food didn't help my cognitive processes much, either.

"You'll probably think of it soon enough," Mia reassured me. "But at the moment, running away from whatever could be chasing after us from Fallarbor… it's probably not a good time to sit around and think about everything, is it? I mean, we need to get to Rustboro really, _really_ soon. We need to get ourselves checked out; who knows what we could have caught while we were in that place? And personally, I'm half-tempted to douse myself in holy water and set fire to myself, given that we let that _freak_ out with us."

I stared at her for a second, my mind slowly trying to unravel the quick-fire speech she had given me.

"We didn't know what he was when we let him out with us," I reassured her. I tried to place a hand on her shoulder, yet at the slightest hint of contact she flinched, yelped and smacked me away, all at once. I nodded to myself and drew my hand back. "We were trying to help him – we couldn't exactly have asked him for his life history then and there. We were being held there – as far as we were aware, everyone else there was as innocent and as much of a victim as us."

"I suppose," Mia sniffed. "But… it's not something we can just pretend never happened, is it? We _killed_ people in there! They might have had friends, or family, or _whatever_ that didn't know what they were doing in their job! We're killers. That's something we can't ever pretend doesn't exist."

I glanced at the floor, finding a little patch of dirt incredibly interesting. The sound of Mia's lairon eating noisily was the only thing that kept us from dropping into a complete awkward silence. "Don't pretend it never happened then," I advised her. "You think I wander round, pretending it never happened? I don't. I just force myself not to think about it." I snorted softly to myself. "It's the stereotypical male reaction to anything we can't cope with; bottle it up, force it down, do anything so long as we don't need to talk about it and so that we can function on a daily basis.

"I force myself to think about other things during the day; tactics, training my pokémon, hell, even the different ways the clouds in the sky make a big, pretty picture! As long as it stops me from thinking about the people I've killed. I suffer that enough when I try to sleep – that's why I force myself to keep going until I'm ready to pass out – no energy, no time to lay awake thinking." I sighed and nodded forwards. "Anyway, enough of the sharing. Let's just keep going."

"Wait!" Mia hissed as I passed her. "You want me to bottle up everything I'm feeling? Think happy thoughts until I go to sleep? Is that what you're saying?"

I winced and hoped no one else was nearby in the caverns. "I'm saying that you need to find a way to deal," I told her. "The knowledge of what you've done won't ever go away, but eventually it becomes easier to deal with. Pulling the trigger becomes easier every time, but living with the consequences is a constant. Let's get moving," I said sharply as I turned away from her, moving too fast to balance and instead sprawling face-first into the cavern wall.

"We should stop a moment," Mia said tenderly as I cursed in pain. "There's a difference between pushing yourself to your limits and being just plain stupid. I'm not an idiot, you know? I'm perfectly aware that you've got a drug problem and that you're spending a lot of time thinking about when to get a fix."

I leant my arms against the wall, doubled over but managed to crane my head enough to look at her and roll my eyes. "Is this the part where you tell me drugs are bad and that I should give them up and live a life free of sin?"

It was her turn to roll her eyes. "Fuck no," she snorted. "Yes, I'm your friend; yes I should probably be saying something like that. But truth is; getting over an addiction's harder than people think. You can't just go cold turkey whilst we're already weak and trying to navigate through a serious of mountainous tunnels. You'd be a danger to yourself and to me too. The best thing for you right now is probably to keep going, try and put it off as long as you can, then only use when the need's too great and when we're somewhere slightly safe."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You're awfully cold and knowledgeable about this, aren't you?"

She gave me a ghost of a smile. "Dad's a parole officer. Since some of the people he sees are recovering addicts, he needs to understand what they're going through. Even when addicts are prescribed other drugs to get over the one they're on, they're told to take them at regular doses, slowly weaning themselves off it. That's the best plan for you here, too. But after we get out of here, you really need to get some help; otherwise you'll hurt yourself, or even someone else." She laughed a small, nervous little sound. "I got loads of similar lectures when I was growing up, if only to make sure I never wanted to try the stuff myself. At least now I can tell people what they need to do in such situations, huh?"

I arched an eyebrow and pushed her words aside. "Yeah, sure, seek help. Otherwise doom and destruction. Got ya. Can we move on now then? I'd rather get to Rustboro sooner rather than later – I'm sure you're of the same opinion?"

She nodded silently and recalled her lairon, replacing it with her stantler instead. I let Scar out of his ball and had him lead the way, illuminating a little of the tunnels as we slowly made our way to what we hoped was freedom.

Then, what sounded like a gentle whisper of the wind tickled my ears.

"_Murderer..."_

I jumped nearly a foot in the air and glared accusingly at Mia. "Did you say something?" I snapped.

She looked back with innocent, confused eyes. "I didn't say anything. I didn't even _hear_ anything."

I grumbled to myself as I turned around, following after Scar. Mia and I fell into an uneasy silence after that, the only sounds our footsteps, Scar's claws raking over rock and Charles' heavy hoof-steps.

Then again, it was like the wind was whispering to me.

"_Addict…"_

I frowned and felt my ears burn fiercely as I tried to ignore the strange voice. It didn't sound anything like Mia's voice and was far too light to have come from anywhere nearby. I told myself it was nothing more than someone further in Meteor Falls somewhere, having an argument of some sorts that somehow reflected perfectly on me. Or even a distant echo of my own argument with Mia.

"_Coward…"_

I gritted my teeth and had Scar barbecue an unfortunate pokémon that had crept too close to us. He obliged quite happily, filling the air around us with the horrible stink of burning flesh and fur. Smelling that seemed to tether me to reality, giving me some sort of focus that what I was hearing wasn't real.

When it whispered my name, my spine went cold and I freaked out.

"Alright, who's saying all that shit?" I screamed at the dark, my voice bouncing all around. "You think you're funny? Well come here and I'll show you just how funny my fist is when it meets your face!"

"I don't think it's a person," Mia whispered nervously. I whirled around and glared at her, furious and shaking until I saw the way she glanced around herself with palpable fear. "You remember when we left that horrible base? We had that haunter following us?"

I blinked until realisation dawned and punched me in the gut. "That thing's still following us? But… _how_? I've got to have expelled that drug it was tracking by now!"

"We killed its trainer, didn't we?" Mia asked me. "Wild haunter have a habit of tormenting their victims, whispering horrible truths to them to slowly drive them insane. They feed off paranoia and fear. I think this one's decided that it wants to make us its new meal."

"Brilliant," I growled. "Just what I needed. A psychotic haunter out for my blood. As if I haven't already had to deal with some sort of ghost hell-bent on my death!" I glowered at the darkness before finally folding my arms mutinously and glancing at Scar. "Can you sense it? Burn it and scare it off? Maybe even make it skitter on to the afterlife or wherever haunter go?"

"We could capture it," Mia suggested. "It's free from trainers now, seeing as we –I – killed its last one. If it's going to be following us, we might as well capture it and make it fight for us."

"Good idea," I said. "It can be yours then. I've already got a ghost and a rather poisonous pokémon."

She looked confused at that. I figured that I'd probably never got round to explaining just how much Lacey knew about potent herbs and poisons.

"Alright," Mia said with a small nod. "Guess I'll capture it… but I can't see it in here," she said with a frown. All these mountains… they're naturally filled with loads of gems that glow purple. Any light gets on them; they make the whole place seem purple. That means in the light, the haunter's going to be camouflaged. And of course, we're not going to see it in the dark."

I looked round at the dark cavern apprehensively and failed to suppress a shudder. "Brilliant," I muttered. "I'm starting to think my life isn't complete without something stalking and trying to kill me."

* * *

"_Liar…"_

I frowned and tried my best to ignore the delicate whispers that had graced my ears for little over a few days.

"_Destroyer…"_

"Isn't there any sort of way we can tune it out?" I whined, placing my hands over my ears. Loki, from atop my head, cackled and mimicked the action. I'd kept him out with us, hoping the sableye could find and start hissing at the haunter again, letting us see where it was. Instead, he'd glanced above us, growled at the ceiling and then carried on about his business. It made me assume that the damned haunter was hiding in the ceiling, leaving us unable to fight it at any given time.

"_Fool…"_

"I wish there was," Mia grunted, sagging on her stantler. She looked completely wiped – almost like the haunter's words were draining her. Her cacnea waddled alongside her, grunting occasionally and more often than not, finding a geodude that we hadn't spotted and promptly smashing it to pieces. Watching the little cactus pokémon made me smile – in a way it reminded me of the really short, angry people who would often begin cursing like a maniac over something inconsequential.

"If your sableye – which is dark and ghostly – can't block it out for you, the haunter's probably going to keep on whispering all these nothings to us until we reach daylight," groaned Mia. "At first it wasn't so bad, but now it's every few minutes. It's really getting me down."

I didn't mention to her that I wasn't hearing it every few minutes, rather every now and again. Maybe it hated her more, for killing its previous trainer, maybe it thought she would be easier to break, or maybe it just couldn't pressure me as much. I didn't know what the explanation for it was, nor - to be totally honest - did I really care.

"_Give up…"_

I stopped suddenly and glanced around. That one was new. Before that, everything the haunter bothered me with was only one word. Either it was learning, or it knew something.

"'Give up'?" I echoed. "And do what; turn myself in to the police?" I asked the darkness. "Because I'm really looking forward to spending the rest of my life behind bars."

Mia bit her lip. "That's even if it gets to trial – for all we know we could be one of those many prisoners who disappear each year."

I blinked and glanced at her. "What do you mean by that? Are prison guards killing them and making it look like they've disappeared? Or have they escaped or something?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. But after everything in that gym, it's making me start to think that maybe there's places where the worst of the worst are taken… maybe even treated in such a way that normal legal systems wouldn't approve of."

"Can't say I'm all that surprised," I muttered. "People can and will go to major lengths in order to make sure certain people can't do certain things again, or even at all. Even the most law abiding, mild mannered person can still be so disgusted by someone's actions that they'll be able to kill someone… even torture them. You're so adamantly against killing people and unable to cope with the repercussions of it, yet you were still able to do it, when push came to shove."

She pulled at her sleeve and looked away from me. "Do you _have_ to bring that up?" she mumbled. "After all you've done to talk to me and calm me down after it, bringing it up not two days later isn't going to help me much, is it?"

"I'm not… sorry," I said guiltily. "But I couldn't think of a better example. If you want something slightly different, there's still you flipping out and wanting to string up the guy we pulled out of that gym too. I thought he was a nice enough guy when we were saving him… it just really goes to show how little we're able to judge people, huh?" I snorted to myself. "At least this time it wasn't under the guise of a feeble old lady."

Her head snapped towards me. "Huh?"

I threw her a sheepish grin. "Long story. Short version; little old lady managed to fool me into thinking she was harmless, then she shot me. The ego damage was actually a lot worse than the bullet wound."

"And is that the future we've got to look forward to?" she asked me. "Everything becoming so bad that even old ladies will blast us to bits?"

"Not blast us to bits," I clarified fruitlessly. "Just more… seek bloody vengeance on the people responsible for the death of a family member."

"Okay." Mia managed to laugh a little. "That sounds a bit like _my_ nana. Except she's seventy-three and wheelchair-bound. But she's one of those rich old coots that likes to spend her time shooting pidgey for fun. It's actually pretty funny to watch her shooting a shotgun; the recoil makes her wheelchair slide backwards. One time -" she started laughing at the memory, clutching at her side, "-one time she went a little crazy and fired her gun like a maniac. She kept sliding further and further back, then ended up sliding all the way downhill. She ended up falling out of her chair and into a bush!"

I smiled a little at the sound of her actually laughing again. It seemed like she was finally making the first tiny steps into becoming her old self again. "Your family sounds as mad as you," I said.

She ended her laugh with a snort. "A little. I had to learn it from somewhere, after all. Did you never have any crazy old aunties or a grandpa that would lose his false teeth?"

"Not really," I said with a shake of my head. "My parents died before I can really remember them – all my other family probably before that. No one ever came to see me, so I'm guessing that they were all dead, or they thought I was. No actual family, just a big camp of soldiers and a few families. You'd have the camp mother, of course – the one woman who would be almost maternal towards everyone else there – and every other soldier was like a brother or sister… but we were all very high on self-preservation. Unless a kid or a pregnant woman was in danger, it was generally a case of leave them to die if you might end up getting hurt by rescuing them."

There was silence in the cave tunnels for a little while, until finally Mia sighed. "Bummer," she whispered. "So why are you here anyway?"

I stared at her a moment, confused. "'Here'?" 'Here' as in these caves here, 'here' as in with you or 'here' as in within this time period?"

"I meant as in this time," she clarified. "And I'm really starting to feel like I'm playing a part in some sort of sci-fi film. I shouldn't be talking about time periods like this. Next I'll be trying to work out temporal paradoxes to see the possible reasons for why you're here."

I felt my head spin and my brain stop working for a moment. "You can actually work those sorts of things out?"

"Well there are loads of _actual_ scientists trying to work on things like this; physicists defining them. Grandfather paradoxes, multiple universe theories, even that the universe will protect a person from creating a paradox," she explained. "I'm just a _little _bit geeky enough to like researching these things online… I wanted to know if it were ever possible." She managed to smile and chuckle at my expense. "You realise if any scientist found out about you, they'd love to cut you open and find out just how you managed to come back eighty years, right?"

I shuddered at the thought. "Please don't tell me you're planning on trading me in to a bunch of insane scientists," I begged. "Surely they can find a celebi and have a few fun experiments with one of those?"

"Celebi are legendary for a reason; they're only ever seen for a moment so brief you're half convinced it never happened. If they were ever captured, they're powerful enough to tackle large quantities of pokémon and still come out on top." She pulled herself atop Charles, held onto his antlers and guided him forwards gently. "There's been a load of research that says there were almost a thousand pokémon native to the ocean before the last time The Groudon rose. Supposedly it woke up a month before The Kyogre and managed to wipe out almost all the ocean-bound pokémon by just drying up the seas."

So in other words, I was lucky enough to meet a celebi face-to-face for more than half a second – a pokémon which could possibly wipe out almost a thousand different species within a month.

A pokémon that just so happened to have taken me from the future in order to stop things from ever going badly.

A pokémon that could no doubt quite easily crush me if I ever disappointed it.

Like, say by failing to stop the world from falling into ruin.

"I _really_ don't like pokémon," I muttered. Atop my head, Loki snarled and pulled back my eyelids until I yelped and snatched them back from him. "Except you, of course. You crazy, ghostly imp. If I didn't like you, there'd be no way I'd have ever been able to suffer you."

"I'm sure he can't be that bad," Mia defended as she recalled her cacnea and offered my pokémon a wide grin.

My face fell. "I passed out in that bunker and he woke me up by spilling fluid on me."

She didn't seem to follow. "So he used a watery technique?"

"He peed on me."

"Oh," she whispered, giving my pokémon a shocked glance. He smiled back at her and filled the caverns with his cackles.

* * *

I found out after I shot up whilst inside the caves that my hand seemed to becoming infected. Ironically, it seemed the drugs I was injecting into myself, whilst screwing up with my body and with my mind, seemed to also be holding off most of the infection. Mia told me it had to be some sort of chemical they must have used to ensure euphoria, whilst fighting infection.

I didn't know what to make of that.

It would have been better if there was something that could have made me lose all attachment to the stupid drugs I was injecting into myself, yet there seemed to be no such thing.

"The wall looks angry," I commented one day, when we were nearly out of Meteor Falls. "It's… bulging. And kinda… spinny."

I saw Mia shoot me a look. Then another Mia appeared beside her, sporting a look of equal distaste. "That's because you're high," they spoke in unison. Another appeared above them both, her head floating around the others and glaring accusingly at me. "I guess I should just be thankful you're not doing this alone in an alley somewhere."

The four Xanders beside me croaked as one. Their heads left their bodies, spinning around me in a brilliant circle, pupils wide and black.

"When did… when did you learn to multiply yourself?" I grunted at him.

The many Xanders looked at me, all with the same accusatory stare. They inhaled as one, though water only hit me from one direction. I spluttered and flailed at the offending lombre, though only managed to lose my balance and fall on my face.

"Behold, the wonders of my saviour," the Mias grunted, ashamed. "If this were a film, I'd have been saved by the dashing hero and whisked off my feet for a life filled with marriage, amazing sex and a few children running around. Instead I got a teenage soldier from the future who just so happens to also have a drug addiction."

The Xanders all croaked something and made the Mias sigh. "I don't really mean it. I'm just a little pissed that we're still hiding out in these caves, even now. I thought we'd have been in Rustboro by now. I didn't think that all the hardships would still carry on after we managed to get out."

I stared past them all and on the yellow eyes glaring at us from the darkness.

"The eyes… they watch us," I mumbled as I wrapped my arms around myself. "They're angry."

The Mias all filed into one, large, floating head. "Great, more drug-filled rambling."

The eyes behind them all rumbled in anger. It was the wakeup call everyone in front of me needed; they leapt up shrieking and pale, dancing around within the shallow dark and trying to find the strange noises.

Everything blurred around me. Rocks spun into ground, ground spun into pokémon and pokémon into human. It was a horrible mess of colour; sounds only audible from some distant place, like they were being filtered by a wall of sand, yet the eyes remained a constant within. Staring at me. Watching me. Breathing green fire.

"Dragon!" I yelped and stumbled over my feet in an effort to get away. The floor moved beneath my feet and I fell flat on my face again. I lay there for a moment, cursing the ground and the way it span underneath me. It spun and spun, with only the strange cold of the dragon's green fire tethering me to reality.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," the Mias all groaned from somewhere above me. They stumbled backwards, kicking rocks and grit out of their way, only to stop before my legs and make a stand. "Just what I always wanted to do when I travelled Hoenn," they muttered sarcastically. "Get abducted and fight off a salamence. _Brilliant."_

I grumbled and pushed myself over, so that it was my back on the floor and not my face. The yellow-eyed beast trudged into view; a long blue neck that ended in a strong-skulled head, two small wings poking out of a large, bluish-white scaled body and a short, stumpy tail stretching out from behind.

"Not evolved," I grumbled before I rolled over and hurled my stomach out over the rocks. I dimly heard the Mias grunt in disgust before one of the Xanders soaked me with water in some strange effort to bring me back to reality.

I glanced back upwards and saw only one Mia. She split into four briefly before coming back to only one again, face full of controlled fear and her arms shaking ever so slightly.

"Protect him," she commanded Xander, who croaked an affirmation. He sat just beside my chest, breathing rhythmically, trying to suppress his own fear.

In my drug-filled state, I could do no such thing. Instead I just shrieked and tried to climb across the spinning floor and away from the angry dragon.

The sound of two poké balls exploding deafened my ears for a short while, until the dragon began roaring again. Xander bounced in front of me and shook his short, stubby head, letting me know escape wasn't the best option.

I snarled at him and tried to push past, only to fall on my face again. The world spun out of control as I glanced back at the dragon and found Mia fending it off to the best of her ability, with only two of her pokémon between her and certain death.

"Saskia, pin it down!" Mia shrieked as she jumped away from another blast of green fire. "Wrex, take the fire!"

The cacnea puffed up and fired a number of needles into the screeching dragon. It hissed wildly and pounded at the cave floor, shaking us all and throwing rocks down from the ceiling. The lairon darted forwards and bite into the dragon's foreleg, tearing out a chunk of blue-white flesh and covering the floor in brilliant red blood. The dragon roared and snapped its neck at the lairon, nearly taking its head clean off.

As the dragon started chasing the lairon, the canea vanished from view, appeared on the dragon's back and buried two thorny arms into the back of its neck. Blood splashed out and coloured the cacnea red as the lairon dug its claws into the earth and threw dirt into the dragon's yellow eyes. It roared again, bathing the lairon in green fire and setting it aflame with an eerie green glow.

"Wrex!" Mia yelped as she recalled the pokémon in a flash of light. Before the poké ball's glow had ever faded, the salamence bent its long neck back and snatched the cacnea from its back, crushing it within its large, draconic jaws. The cacnea squealed in pain before the salamence spat it out and crushed it underneath a large foot, spraying thick red blood everywhere.

As Mia recalled her injured pokémon, I managed to fumble for a poké ball. In a flash of light, Scar appeared, growling fiercely and snorting acrid smoke from his nostrils.

However, once he saw the state I was in, he turned all his attention away from the dragon and just glared at me.

"Don't just stand there!" I yelled at him, squinting as his head threatened to grow and spin around the room. "Get that shelgon-salamence thing!"

He snorted once more and poked me with a clawed toe. Xander puffed up and hissed back at him, though the lizard just remained impassive to it all as the dragon advanced on us all.

"This isn't good!" Mia yelped as another of her pokémon appeared in a flash of light. Already stamping at the floor, Charles reared back and growled at the dragon. "Hypnotise it!"

I barely heard the pokémon snort a reply as the world seemed to wither and blur. Everything turned into a soft haze, spinning around in a gentle sort of brown mesh. Everywhere I looked, I seemed only able to see the stantler's two large antlers, giving off little waves like a hot surface giving out heat.

"_You_ aren't supposed to look at it!" Mia hissed at me as she grabbed my armpits and attempted to drag me away. "Only the dragon! We've got about a minute or two, we've got to move!"

I nodded and flailed uselessly at the floor, unable to get to my feet. Finally Scar rolled his eyes and lifted me without much effort, digging his claws into my arms hard enough to draw blood. I hissed at him, though he only glared back at me and sniffed distastefully at me. His claws tightened around my abused elbow, slowly squeezing more and more, cutting off the blood and making it all go numb.

"Hey!" I yelped and tried to pull my arm away from him, only to overcompensate and stumble into Mia. She sighed and pushed me back into balance, telling me to sober up quickly or get left behind.

I glanced back to Xander as Mia managed to recall Charles even as we jogged away from the sleeping dragon. The lombre just looked up at me as he hopped along behind us, gave a small little shrug as if there was nothing he could do about it all, then accepted being recalled by Mia without a single protest.

"Now we really need to get to Rustboro quickly," Mia muttered, her voice cracking with worry. "I'm not sure how long Saskia will last, just in her poké ball. Being squished isn't going to do much good for her health."

I nodded and focused on making my feet move in tandem with Mia and Scar's. With my arms and weight supported by both of them, I felt just a little bit more than useless.

Really, that should have been enough to make me go cold turkey. It was obvious that even Scar and Xander had their protests about it all – that should have been more than enough to make me realise how bad things had gotten.

Unfortunately, it took a lot more.

* * *

It was night when we finally got out of the tunnels and arrived just on the outskirts of Rustboro. The way the entire city had little bits of yellow light shining out of windows was probably one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen in my life; after all I'd been through.

"Where to first?" I asked as I rubbed my elbow. I felt even more conscious about my habit since Mia saw me whilst I was skipping through the clouds and knew there had to be a lecture about it all. I pretended that I couldn't remember any of it, yet I recalled perfectly the large, almost fully-evolved shelgon nearly managing to set us ablaze or consume us all.

"Pokémon centre," Mia grunted. She looked completely wiped; large bags under her eyes, her clothes torn and muddied, hair in a mess and paler than I'd ever thought possible. "It's been just over a day since Saskia got squished by that thing. I haven't checked her yet because I'm too afraid that will make her injuries worse. Hopefully she'll be okay."

I nodded to her wordless prayers. "Alright, pokémon centre first. My pokémon could do with being checked too. Who knows what those people in Fallarbor did. But hey-" I managed a small grin, "-at least we've got the money for the best suite in the pokémon centre now, right?"

Mia's glare was cold enough to freeze fire. "That's not funny."

"I know, but… forget it," I sighed and dropped all attempts to cheer her up. I figured that once she knew her pokémon were fine, she'd be a little bit more back to normal.

Though that meant we spent the entire walk to the pokémon centre in complete silence. Neither of us had much energy to do anything, what with everything that had gone on. The haunter was still stalking us too, though with the noise of the city, its violent whispers were almost inaudible.

When we finally got to the pokémon centre, we were told that our pokémon were going to be fine. It seemed to lift a massive weight from Mia's shoulders. Apparently her cacnea would just need to be kept for a few days for extra treatment, then she would be able to battle again. All our other pokémon were fine, if not a little worn down and beaten – though I was told that it seemed Loki had a wedding ring in his stomach.

I pretended not to know where that had come from. It was another case of people I'd killed having family; another potential victim to add to my count.

I pushed the thoughts away as Mia and I left the pokémon centre and headed instead, to the hospital. We had to wait around in accident and emergency for a little while, though after ten minutes, it seemed that Mia had grown tired of waiting for people to go in and have chess pieces removed from awkward places. She pulled aside a nurse and had a quiet word with her, then not five minutes later we were seen by doctors.

"You're hand's slightly infected," I was told by the woman; a short lady with jet black hair, wearing a pair of bright blue scrubs. She looked up at me, scrutinising me with knowing brown eyes as she peeled my makeshift bandages away, revealing the horrible, yellow gooey puss that was concealed inside.

"This looks like a stab wound," she said as she began to try and clean it. "How did you manage to get this?"

I bite back the sarcastic retort that came to mind. "The world's full of a few bad people," I mumbled, mostly to myself. "Travelling around as a trainer, you happen to bump into a few of them."

"Other pokémon trainers?" she guessed, clicking her tongue with a shake of her head. "You wouldn't believe how many people we treat that have been injured by pokémon trainers. Most of the time it's just pokémon related injuries, but occasionally it's the trainers themselves. Out in the wilds, it's obviously easy for people to carry on as if there's no laws to contain them – after all, if you've got a team full of pokémon that could easily destroy a city, why bother with a few pesky laws?"

I winced as she dug a cotton bud deep into my hand. "Tender subject?"

She sighed and shook her head. "We've all got our pokémon-related demons. But for all the bad they do, pokémon trainers are still a necessity. It's better for them to be out there reducing the numbers of wild pokémon out there, rather than letting them run free and destroy everything. They're practically a godsend in Kanto places like Vermillion, where there are seasonal migrations of gyarados that come close to the town."

I could only just sit there and nod along. It was strange that I was receiving philosophical advice from a nurse, yet what she said made complete sense. People feared pokémon, yet needed them at the same time.

I wondered how long it would be before they started to just fear them.

"Take on of these pills, twice a day," the nurse informed me as she handed me a prescription, after having bandaged my hand. "Take it to the counter just down the corridor from here and you'll find the pharmacy. In two weeks, your infection should be completely cleaned up."

I nodded and pulled at the fresh bandages subconsciously. "Thanks," I said as I turned to leave.

"By the way," she said as I got to the doorframe. "I noticed those track marks on your elbow. If you don't mind me asking; how often are you using?"

I flushed bright red and rubbed my elbow self-consciously. "Urm, I don't know what you mean," I lied, plain-faced. "I've got a… uh… beautifly. It's a bit vicious sometimes and keeps stabbing me in the elbow – I think because it gets kinda sweaty there or something."

The nurse raised an eyebrow and nodded without any trace of her believing me. "Right, I must have been wrong then," she said and dropped her gloves into a rubbish bin. "But you know there are help groups that you can go to, right?"

The mention of help groups made me remember the one I visited in Fallarbor. Never again was I going to one of them.

I thanked the woman and found out they'd text me the results of my blood tests within two weeks. It wasn't exactly something I could ever claim I was going to look forward to. But I tried my best to ignore the many 'what if' thoughts and tried to think of the good things that would be no doubt happening – like Lacey finally turning into a shiftry.

That lasted all of three minutes.

I found my way outside of the hospital and found Mia leant against the wall in a small courtyard opposite the accident and emergency. Her head was hung low and hidden in shadows, and even from a distance I could see the way her shoulders shook. Instantly I assumed whatever she'd learnt had to be bad news.

"You okay?" I asked as I caught up to her. Instantly I winced and cursed myself, realising how stupid the question must have sounded.

Mia just shrugged and wiped at her eyes. "I suppose. I've been better. Having a nurse take a very _intimate_ swab tends to make things seem a lot more realistic though." She sighed and hugged herself, shaking in large, violent outbursts, rather than little tiny tremors. "I'm just so fed up of this all now," she hissed, digging her fingernails into her elbows deep enough to draw blood. "I mean, before, I might have been insane, but I wasn't ever one of these people that shies away from anything, just because it makes me think of something that happened before! I lost _five_ of my pokémon only a little while before I came to Hoenn, yet I didn't hide myself away from other pokémon. I know it's different now, but why the hell do I have to be so flinchy when it comes to people touching me now?"

I forced myself not to shrug and inwardly wondered how I managed to end up in situations requiring subtlety and tact – two things I'd never once really claimed to own.

"Well, Mia… you see…" I started and trailed off instantly, clueless as to what I was to say. Really, in such a situation, there was nothing I could say.

"Don't," she growled. "Just don't. I don't want to hear about how this is different and that I shouldn't feel bad about this. I've just had those lectures from the nurses. But the thing is, they don't actually understand anything I'm going through. It'd be like me trying to comfort you after you warped back through time and found yourself in a new world."

"Actually, I wouldn't have minded that too much," I told her. "I got it, to some degree, but it was a heavy case of 'adapt so you can save the world'. Not exactly the best settling speech there is really."

"That's what I mean!" she declared, pointing a finger at me. "Everyone seems to think they know exactly how to treat someone in certain situations, yet they don't seem to realise we're all individuals and might like another method! Everyone keeps telling me that my reactions are _natural_. Are they? Are they really? I hate myself right now, just because I've turned into this weird woman that shrieks every time someone touches her and thinks everything bad is going to happen again! I can't stand the fact that I react like that, yet I can't help but do so!"

She sighed and dropped her head again, shaking her head to herself. "I just want everything to go back to normal again. But nothing will ever be normal again."

"It will be," I promised her. I reached out and tentatively put a hand on her shoulder – she flinched, but held herself long enough for me to squeeze it reassuringly. "See?" I coaxed her. "For all you just went on about, you're proving now that your boundary issues are something you can force yourself to overcome."

"Maybe," she grunted. "But forcing things to happen isn't natural. How many times have you forced away a feeling or a thought, only for it to come back and hit you later, ten times as badly?"

"Too many to count," I said. "But that's the way I deal with things."

She grumbled a reluctant acceptance to herself before rolling her shoulders and staring at the sky. "I'm surprised it's not raining. It's always a gloomy, rainy night when things like this happen, aren't they?"

"When someone has a crisis of conscience and needs reassurance? Only in fiction," I said. I followed her gaze and tried to stare up at the stars, though the harsh city lights managed to block out a lot of the night sky. It was probably the only thing that made me miss my own world – at least there; you could always see the starry skies.

"How long's it been?" Mia whispered, her eyes wide and sky-bound. "Since we got caught in that horrible place?"

I scratched my head as I tried to figure it out. "We were in Meteor Falls for about nine days," I said. "Though in that gym… I've got no idea. I could have been out for hours or days when they knocked me out, then the first thing they did really was make me drugged up."

"Ten days. We were there ten days," she told me, her voice hollow. "Nineteen days." I saw her whisper words soundlessly to herself, yet failed to comprehend any of it. Her face fell for only a moment before she took a deep breath and looked back up at me, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. "So what are you going to do now then? Once your pokémon are healed, I mean. Are you staying in Rustboro, or moving on or what?"

I blinked, suddenly aware of how little I had planned. "Well, I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, after everything, I thought that maybe-"

"You'd stick around with me?" Mia guessed, a grin threatening to tug at her lips. "I appreciate the thought, I really do. But I'm going to be here a few days until Saskia's better, then I'm going to hunt down that haunter and capture it. I haven't heard it really for a little while; I'm thinking there's a number of people in the city with dark pokémon that are scaring it off. I know it sounds weird, seeing as it's been stalking us and all… but I want to capture it and see if I can show it that I'm not really some fiend full of bloodlust that murdered its trainer heartlessly."

"That doesn't sound weird," I reassured her. I wondered whether I could have attempted that with Aaron's shedinja… though something told me that murderous ghost was far beyond reasoning with. "But I've honestly got no idea what I'm going to do now. Maybe head towards Mauville and try to get the badge there? Regardless, I want to make sure you're alright before I go and work up the courage to face another gym."

"There's also _that_ to think about," she said with a gesture towards my elbow. "Some gyms are pretty strict with policies; they'll get any trainers that challenge them to go for a load of blood tests, their pokémon too. All to make sure that the pokémon aren't being abused with a load of steroids, as well as checking that the trainer isn't a drug-addled fool."

I groaned and pulled an arm over my face. "Brilliant. Just brilliant. Add to all my problems, why don't you? I swear, just _hearing_ about that makes me need another fix."

Her face fell instantly. "Don't joke about things like that."

"Who's joking?" I muttered.

"Don't even go there," Mia growled. "I turned a blind eye to it whilst we were in the caves, but I swear if I get any idea that you're going to end up hurting someone, I will restrain you and throw you into rehab myself!"

I rolled my eyes. "Your threats are becoming a lot less inventive."

"Who's threatening?" she shot back. "If that's the only way I can help you, it's the way I'll take. Don't become a junkie, that's all I'm asking. I don't want to see you in the streets, mugging people or selling yourself just for another fix."

I just grunted and turned away from her. It was my life, I figured, which meant it was mine to do with as I saw fit. Whilst I did agree with her, I didn't like it being pointed out to me. I knew I needed to get myself off the drugs, yet I couldn't help but want to use them again. They brought me peace, which was something I never really ever got to know. Even if it was artificial and potentially life-threatening, it was still letting me just… _escape_.

"I'm going back to the pokémon centre," she finally told me. "Stand there and hate me for saying these things if you want, but I'll be there if you want to talk."

I grunted and shrugged my shoulders, keeping my back to her until I finally felt her sigh and walk away. I knew it was bad of me to act up like that to her, yet I just couldn't find the energy to care. I didn't want anyone telling me what I had to do with my life. It was all too much the same of everything I'd ever had to endure – as a soldier it wasn't too bad, it was my life and my job. But after that, it was a case of 'you must save the world', 'you must do this to help people', 'you mustn't do that, or people will suffer'. At the time, it just seemed to me that no one ever seemed to think about what I wanted.

It took me a while to fully realise what an idiot I was being by thinking such things. Mia was only really trying to look out for me, yet I treated her only with silent, selfish tantrums.

I finally gave up giving the air the cold shoulder a little while later and made my own way back to the pokémon centre to collect my own pokémon. The walk there cleared up my mind enough to make me want to apologise to Mia, yet when I checked in on her, I found her asleep by her cacnea's bed. I left her to sleep and made my way back out into the town, unable to figure out just what there was I could do with myself.

I tried letting out my pokémon, if only so I could try and train them and attempt at normalcy. Erra was still attacking everything that moved, which meant I couldn't let her out within the city limits. I tried letting Scar out of his ball, though he took one look at me, sniffed and turned his nose on me, then tried to eat a bouncer. I couldn't figure out what had caused him to suddenly turn on me, but wasted no time on quickly recalling him to his poké ball – the fact that the bouncer unleashed a vengeful machamp on us sped things up a little too.

Loki meanwhile was just being Loki – though it seemed he remembered Rustboro well enough; he tried to break into a number of shops that he saw. I finally gave up and recalled him too, just in case I managed to bump into the owner of the weapons shop I'd robbed.

Even Xander, it seemed, couldn't be bothered with me either. He gave me a dirty look once I let him out of his poké ball, crawled around me slowly, almost as if he was analysing me, spat a mouthful of water in my face and turned his back on me. When I asked him what it was for, he refused to answer me, instead giving me the cold shoulder until I recalled him too.

I was convinced my pokémon all hated me. I couldn't understand what had happened – why we had gone from being like a family, to me suddenly being the black sheep and hated by them all. I couldn't take the stress of it all. Everything was buzzing in my head, reasons, accusations, plots and excuses. The shock and horror of it all just made my urge to escape all the greater.

I was convinced that artificial bliss would give me the answer I needed.

Though I wasn't expecting what happened next.

The moment I loaded the syringe, a poké ball on my bandolier exploded with enough force to send me sprawling over myself. I yelped and rolled backwards, landing in a graceless heap at the feet of Scar.

He looked down at me, acrid black smoke pouring from his nostrils. I stared up at him for only a moment, though it was enough for him to make his move.

In one fell swoop, he snatched the syringe out of my hand and snapped it in two.

My mouth fell open as the clear liquid dripped to the ground from the broken shards of glass in Scar's claws. He sneered to himself, sounding pleased, which made the shock I felt turn to anger.

"What the _hell_ was that for?" I yelled at him.

Then he stabbed me in the arm with the needle.

I screamed and fell backwards, eyes wide and fearful as I clutched at the broken syringe. Fingers shaking, I pressed the area carefully, trying to pull the damn thing out. He'd thrust the needle in all the way, leaving me with less than an inch of broken glass to grip.

I didn't even have time to question him before he pressed a claw to his poké ball and vanished with a flash of red light.

There was nothing I could say at the time that would have come close to expressing just how confused I was. Instead I grit my teeth and pried the needle from within my arm, hoping that it wasn't buried anywhere near enough to cause damage.

Blood trickled down my arm when I finally pulled it all out. My fingers looked like ribbons and pain threatened to overwhelm me completely. I sat there for a little while, hyperventilating and wondering just what on earth could have happened. My own pokémon had released itself, stabbed me with a syringe I was planning to inject with, then retreated back into his poké ball?

It just didn't make sense.

There was only one person I knew that would have any idea of what had happened, though I wasn't sure whether or not I would manage to get any help. I wrapped my injured hand up as best I could before I found my phone and dialled the person I really didn't want to face.

It took five rings for her to finally answer.

"Three weeks. There had better be a _damn_ good reason for you not even sending a damn text to let me know what was going on! You do _not_ take advantage of your friends like that!"

I winced and held the phone at arm's length until most of the screaming had died down. "Hi Chris," I said meekly.

"Don't you 'hi Chris' me!" she shrieked at me. "Do you know what you've put me through?"

"I'm sorry I ran up your bills," I muttered down the phone.

"'Bills'?" she parroted, her voice becoming even more irate. "Do you think that's what this is about? Yes I'm pissed that you've made me lose a bit of money, but you've been gone for three weeks without a word! Did you think that I wasn't going to worry? I haven't been able to get through to you; neither has Adryan! What the _fuck_ has been going on for you disappear for three weeks?"

I looked at the track marks on my elbow, the blood trickling down my arm, at the broken syringe on the floor and couldn't stop the sob that burst out of my lips.

"I need help."


	40. Recovery

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Recovery**

* * *

_If you only do what you know you can do- you never do very much_ ~ Tom Krause

**-O-O-O-**

"_The first step is always the hardest. Thing is, all the steps after it are equally as hard. It's only when we're given the answers we need does it seem like we've suddenly hitched a ride to success on the back of a truck."_

- Scott Ridley, Owner of Hoenn Battle Frontier. (June 1st, 3008)

**-O-O-O-**

"I'm leaving."

Mia looked up at me, tearing her gaze away from her cacnea long enough to focus on me hovering on the edges of the room.

"I've got a friend I'm gonna stay with for a little while. She lives near Mauville and well… she's slightly psychotically violent enough to stop me from doing anything to hurt myself," I explained with the ghost of a laugh. "I just… my pokémon made it pretty clear to me that they weren't happy with what I was getting up to. I'm not strong enough to help myself… but I'm hoping that with their influence, I might be able to start getting myself sorted out."

Mia managed to give me a small smile. "So what happened to make you change your mind?"

I gave her a sheepish look before I showed her my hastily-bandaged arm. "Scar made it clear he wasn't happy with my habit. Xander turned his back on me, Erra's too out of it to form an opinion and Loki just seems too immature or just doesn't care either way. If my pokémon are willing to cut me out or even attack me over this, it's pretty obvious I should try and get myself over it."

She arched an eyebrow at me. "So my subtle approach and nagging didn't work; instead it took physically assaulting you to make you see sense?" She rolled her eyes and patted her unconscious cacnea's arm. "Men. Never listen to a word women say." She sighed, shook her head before she stood up and gave me an awkward hug. "Stay safe, you hear?" she said, withdrawing quickly as I moved to hug her back. "Let me know how it goes. And good luck."

I nodded stupidly to her back. "Uh, yeah. Count on it. I'll see you soon."

I hadn't even made it out of the doorway before she whispered my name. I stopped and turned my head, only to see the back of hers.

"Killing… does it really become easier?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

I tugged at the side of my mouth before answering her as honestly as I could. "The act itself? Yeah. Dealing with it afterwards? Not ever."

She sighed and nodded, still refusing to face me. "Thanks. See you soon, huh?"

"Yeah…" I said awkwardly to the back of her head. There was nothing more I could have said there, I figured.

Maybe I should have asked her why those questions were so important.

At least maybe I would have figured out who she was planning on killing before it was too late.

* * *

It took the train just under three hours to get to Mauville. It took me another hour to finally find my way and arrive at Chris' house.

Then I spent another few minutes wrestling the nervous butterflies that were attacking my stomach and stopping me from knocking on the door.

When I'd finally mustered up the courage to knock on the door, instead of hitting wood, my knuckles hit open air as the door opened up, revealing Chris stood on the opposite side. Her face was tense; she looked like she was torn between anger and concern, each fighting for dominance and neither winning the first word.

I gave her a tiny, sheepish grin before I stared at my feet. "Urm… hi."

Somehow, my feeble greeting managed to tip the odds in favour of concern. Chris gave an exasperated sigh before she finally hugged me and told me to come inside. I nodded mutely, still unable to look at her in the face, even as I sat down in her living room and accepted her hospitality.

It was only when she came back in, carrying a tray of drinks in her artificial arm that my resolve finally broke. "I'm sorry," I mumbled to the floor. "I shouldn't have… I mean, I should have…"

"What's done is done," Chris told me. "As much as I'd like to, I can't get on your case for things that have already happened. Just do me a favour would you? Tell me why you never bothered letting me know anything. I wouldn't have minded looking after your gallade for a little while longer, if you'd had the courtesy to tell me what was going on. You've been off the radar for three weeks now. Not even newbie ten year old trainers get lost in Meteor Caves for that long… unless something bad happens to them, anyway."

I couldn't face lying to her anymore. I hadn't expected Chris to be so nice about it all and it was making me feel increasingly guilty about going into Meteor Falls for a week in the first place, all to be rid of Alistair for a little while.

I told her about everything that had happened in Fallarbor. But once I started talking, I just couldn't stop. I ended up telling her everything, from me getting into the world up to my addiction and my pokémons' – predominantly Scar's – reaction to it. The only thing I managed to leave out was the fact that Lacey killed Adryan's rapidash, as well as Adryan killing the man he thought responsible for his pokémon's death.

When I finally finished speaking, Chris was silent for a good few minutes. It was horrible and incredibly awkward, with only the electrical hum of the nearby fridge and freezer proving any noise.

It took her two tries before she managed to speak.

"You're… from the future?" she asked, slowly and uncertainly. "You realise how ludicrous your entire story sounds, you know? Psychotic gardevoir, clandestine gym operations and psychopathic Elites? Are you sure you're not devising the plot for some strange sort of movie?"

I managed to snort sad laugh at that. "I'm certain. I've got the scars to prove it all. I can't expect you to believe it all. It took getting Ayd's claydol to show him what I'd seen before he believed me. If it hadn't happened to me, I think I wouldn't believe me either."

Finally Chris sighed and hugged herself with her real arm. "You're asking me to take a lot on faith. If this is true, you're asking me to keep a lot under wraps. That Elite you killed? The Sinnoans are convinced he was murdered by the Hoenn government. It's driving up a _lot_ of racial issues people thought were long buried by now and it's not going to end well."

My stomach dropped into raging fires of guilt. "I-I… I didn't think anything like that would happen. He was killing people. I didn't know why. I thought stopping him from killing people would be the best course of action."

Chris stood up and paced around the room restlessly. "Maybe it was. There's been a lot on the news lately about him. The police in Rustboro have found a few things that have been leaked to the media. Apparently Aaron was performing some sort of espionage mission here in Hoenn. The problem with Elites is that they're the most advanced in their… element, for lack of a better word. Ones like Aaron, attuned perfectly to insects can understand and influence anything slightly insectish."

It didn't take long for me to figure out what was happening there. "He was making bonds with all the bug pokémon, wasn't he? What better way to try and invade a country than by using the pokémon that breed the fastest? Millions of them, hidden in the trees or wherever, able to suffocate people in silk pods, inject them with poisons, paralyze their lungs with spores or anything. Sinnoh's trying to go to war with Hoenn, aren't they?"

Chris shrugged. "Maybe. The governments are always competing against each other. A thousand years ago, before we really knew about pokémon, governments would build bigger and bigger weapons, if only for the threat that they could take out another country, all at the push of the button. Maybe this is something like that? Sneak in and have the threat that you control a certain population of a country's pokémon?"

She scoffed and leant on the top of the sofa I was sat on. "Publically, Sinnoh and Hoenn are at a truce. We have an ice-attuned Elite in Glacia, they have a firey one in Flint. Sinnoh's one of the coldest inhabited countries, Hoenn one of the hottest. Sinnoh has the largest number of icy pokémon, Hoenn the largest fiery. When you think about it, each country has the perfect means to attack others through their Elites, bar Johto and Kanto, who share the same four."

"Unless they've got some that the others don't know about," I offered. "It's the basic thing I've learnt through pokémon battles, as well as everything in my life before that; never let your opponent know everything you've got. Johto and Kanto are going to go to war, I know that much. That's my _history_. If the celebi really did send me here to stop things… there's no chance I can stop war from happening."

"But what _did_ it send you back here for then?" She poked me in the shoulder and then rubbed her knuckles against the side of my head. "Think about it. There must be something you need to do."

I frowned and thought, yet came up with nothing. "I don't know. I've tried thinking about this ever since I got here really. I was told by someone else, someone that the celebi supposedly talked to that I had to save the world. More than that, I don't know."

Chris groaned and pushed herself off the sofa. "This is… this is too much. I mean, this _can't_ be real! There's going to be hidden cameras, aren't there? You and Ayd have set this up somehow, convincing gullible old Chris that something so _impossible_ has actually happened!"

I shrugged and stared at my shoes. "I'm not making it up. I wouldn't have been able to come up with such a long story. I don't have the imagination for that."

"But this-" she tried to say, but cut herself off with a shake of her head. "This is like something from one of those cartoon movies. You're going to go on a journey, get awesomely powerful and make friends with every rare and legendary creature there ever was, then defeat the big bad through the power of friendship."

I couldn't help but laugh. "If it were that easy, I'd have done it already. I don't know what to do; I only know from Ayd that the last person who tried anything like this just… disappeared."

"The kid with the girafarig, right?" Chris asked me, a look of concentration plastering her face. "I don't really know any details," she said quickly as I brightened, "but I do remember little things about him. There's websites all over the internet dedicated to trying to remember who he was; they've found video footage with him in it, but the videos are always distorted and cut out randomly all the time. It's creepy."

Even if she didn't know much, there was still a little bit of hope that bloomed inside me. "What about him do they know though? I would try and use the internet, but the last time I tried that involved a public computer and some weird sort of porn explosion."

She grimaced instantly. "I really, _really_ hope you mean that loads of pictures flooded the screen and nothing else." At my blank look she just smirked and pinched a bit of skin above her artificial arm. "Never mind. Anyway, from what I've seen about it, there were little things about him appearing on the television and telling us that we needed to do… something. I don't know. His voice is all weird and hidden behind electrical screams on the footage, then every time it seems like he's about to reveal something important, the videos freeze or just stop completely." She stopped fidgeting and gave me a sharp look. "But that doesn't mean he's from the future! There's a few pokémon; porygon and the like, maybe even rotom or something that are able to screw around with technology!"

I pulled at the hem of my shirt childishly. "But Adryan seemed pretty sure that the kid was from the future."

"Adryan lives in fantasy, outside of reality," Chris snarled. Instantly she recoiled at her own words and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't mean that. I mean I do, if only because he seems to dream so much and hardly ever see that everything around him is still moving. But he's stopped that a lot lately. It's like he's suddenly realised that reality is still here. Took me getting my arm cleaved off to realise that. Guess I'm just jealous," she muttered to herself. "I'm actually more surprised that he managed to meet my boyfriend and have a serious conversation with him."

I quirked an eyebrow. "You have a boyfriend?" I pried.

"Yes, but not the issue now," she said with a wave of her hand. "Been going out for two months, he's nice; I'll explain more at another time. Right now we're sorting out how I'm actually managing to have a serious conversation about you being from the future and slowly believing it."

I nearly leapt off the sofa in sudden joy. "You believe me then?"

"I… don't know," she admitted as she sat down heavily. "I mean, it's _impossible_, it's got to be! Sure, the Celebi exist and can do so… but no one's ever proven that humans can travel through time. But what you're saying makes sense and… I just don't know what to think anymore. I mean-" she gestured around her living room, "-for what feels like forever, I've been working myself as hard as I can so this place is mine. If you're from such a war-torn future, you're pretty much saying all I'm working for now is useless."

I felt guilty instantly. Her words made me realise how much people really did have to lose. I'd acknowledged it before, but I'd never really understood it until I was there, seeing everything that Chris had and knowing that maybe in a few decades, there wouldn't be anything left of it.

"But, I got sent here to change the future," I protested, slightly hoping to cheer her up. "That means everything can be stopped and stay the same; your place will still be here."

She snorted and rolled her eyes at me. "Because you're so intent on completing the task you got sent here for, aren't you? You said it yourself; you've given up what you've been tasked to do, because you don't want to fade away."

I flinched and stared at the floor again. "Well, yeah, but… I mean."

She just sighed and rubbed her eyelids. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just… this is a lot to take in. Everything you've told me you've done… everything you've got to do. There's a reason humans weren't ever given the power to predict the future; we think too much, but we're not smart enough to understand it."

I rubbed my arm and thought about it all. Talking to her made me realise the problems in the way I'd been thinking for so long; almost all boiling down to my own selfishness. These were actual _people_ living here. Not distant memories and names on graves, like I'd known all my life, but living, breathing, talking and dreaming people. The weight of the thought made me collapse, missing the sofa completely and instead hitting the floor.

I'd told myself the whole time that it didn't matter if I didn't help, because undoubtedly everyone that lived in the current time would have been dead by my own. But obviously some must have survived, if only because people were still around in my time. It was like a big explosion from a tiny spark; my selfishness wouldn't help those people live, who wouldn't be able to create life and so on.

I realised then that I needed to help people, in any way I could.

But there was also the biggest problem of all; I didn't want to die doing it.

"I don't know what to do," I mumbled, cupping my chin in my palms. "I got brought here for a reason, right? That stupid pokémon chose me over everyone else; because it thought I could help save this world and all the people living in here. But I don't want to just up and vanish doing so! I mean, that girafarig kid did what he needed to and he vanished!"

Chris blinked and leant forwards, creases slowly coming across her forehead. "How do you know that?"

I glared at her. "So you _do_ know something about him!"

She flinched backwards, composing herself quickly and fixing me with a lethal glare. "No. I don't know anything about it. Nor does anyone else. Not for sure. Which makes me wonder; how do you _know_ that he disappeared because he completed what he needed to do?"

I felt the argument and my breath fly straight out of me. "Well… I mean, he's got to have done, right? Ayd said that-"

"'Ayd said that'," Chris parroted me, scornfully. "Since when did Adryan claim to know the truth either? He doesn't know anything about it; he was only speculating, wasn't he?"

I sat there on the floor, shocked into silence, remembering the conversation. It was true. He'd never said a definite answer. It was all 'maybe's.

Chris smiled at the realisation that jumped across my face. "See? Maybe he didn't really vanish because he did right; maybe he vanished because he did _wrong_. There's any number of explanations for it, no one knows for certain, so no one can tell you how he did manage to vanish off the planet."

I nodded along, hope already surging through me. Though despite that, one tangled string of doubt pulled everything else down. "But what if he did disappear because he succeeded?"

She shrugged. "I can't say. Maybe that's a good thing. I mean, the Celebi brought you here for a reason, right? A task, a job for you to complete. If I was that pokémon and you failed such an important task, I'd be pissed. Either he disappeared because he failed… or he vanished because he completed the task and that was better than suffering whatever it would do to him if he failed."

It certainly made things a lot clearer. But it brought in the main problem; the potential of a die-die situation. Worst case scenario; I fail the celebi and get brutally punished as a result, or I succeed and vanish without a trace.

I didn't honestly know what one of those would have been worse.

"I can't stop a _war_ though," I muttered. "I mean, Kanto and Johto went at it. Looks like Sinnoh and Hoenn will too. I'm just one kid. I can't stand up against all of that."

"Maybe you're not meant to stop the big picture, just help in the little?" Chris suggested after a moment's thought. "You're not powerful enough to stop countries going to war, you're right. But little changes often cause the biggest impact later on. I mean, when you're breeding pokémon, one can develop a little genetic mutation you might not notice. A few generations down the line and that could result in who knows what happening to the pokémon – two heads, three tails, anything. Things like that are how pokémon like doduo came into being.

"Besides," Chris said with a smirk. "I thought you said you'd decided to give up on saving the world."

It was true. But at the same time, it was starting to become a lie. I'd tried not to help the world and instead only ended up getting my friend hurt and myself addicted to drugs. I didn't want to save the world, not really, if it meant I was going to vanish at the end of it. But if I incurred the celebi's wrath by failing… it wasn't something I wanted to think about. I started to believe that maybe even everything that had happened in Fallarbor was a hint from whatever forces that I had to keep on my task.

I figured there had to be a way to stop it without me disappearing. I told myself it wasn't like the celebi was going to show up and randomly poof me out of existence, nor was it likely that I could change anything major.

But what Chris said made sense to me. If I could change little things – maybe build safe places for people to live in. If I was going to change myself by getting over my addictions, surely that meant I could change other things too. I didn't want to disappear, yet I didn't want any more of my friends to get hurt because of me.

I remembered how worried I was for each of my pokémon when I was in the Fallarbor gym – how relieved I was when I found them all. I wanted to protect them all and keep them safe.

The scariest thing was realising I would have given my own life to keep them alive.

It was like a light had suddenly clicked on above my head. I knew I was selfish, yet my pokémon were like my family; I would do anything to keep them safe. Even if I couldn't change the future, I at least wanted to make sure they'd be safe for it. As long as I could stop them and my friends from getting hurt anymore, I knew I could apply myself to change little things to help them out.

Guilt and hope were like a divine mixture for willpower.

"Epiphany?" Chris asked with a grin. I stared at her, mouth open and made a little grunting sound as she laughed. "You've got that look everyone gets when they've finally figured out what they want to do with their lives. I know people say you can never decide in an instant what you want to do, but it always seems like we do. It takes loads and loads of subtle hints and nudges in the right direction, yet we only ever realise it in one, big, clarifying train of thought. Pretty much how I decided I wanted to become a breeder. You finally realised what you're going to do?"

"I'm gonna try," I told her. "I can't let any more of my pokémon die because of me. The wurmple was an accident, only because I hadn't trained Loki enough. The makuhita was a result of my own actions. Sophie the same. Mia got hurt so much all because of me – they wanted to know about me, whether or not I was from the future and hurt her because of it. I don't want to fade away… but what I don't more than that is for my friends or my pokémon to get hurt. I can make little changes and make sure they're safe – I hope. Just listening to everything that's happened so far to me… it's a wonder I haven't died yet. Either I'm one lucky fucker, or something's making sure I'm protected.

"I used to be a soldier. I used to protect people on a daily basis. But since I got here… I've kinda thrown all of that out of the window. I've completely forgotten who I am, all for a chance to escape." I shook my head to myself and looked up at Chris, questions in my face. "But that's who I am, isn't it? You don't ever change overnight. I'm selfish and want to survive more than anything else. But I've protected people since I was thirteen. I chose to do that… it's what I was made to do. I can't let the world fall apart because of my mistakes. Maybe I've already caused Sinnoh and Hoenn to go to war… but maybe I can protect people from the worst things that are to come."

Chris managed a grin. "Is there going to be a montage now? You studying and planning until you've finally figured out what to do?"

I snorted and fell back into the sofa. "I wish. Everything that happened in that poison gym… it's horrible but… if they were so interested in me being from the future, it makes me think that they mustn't want me to succeed. They might have been torturing people who slipped through the law's cracks… they might even be the good guys in that respect. But what if they got too power hungry? There's a load of 'what's, 'if's and 'maybe's here… but I'm fed up of everything bad happening to me, if only because I'm so busy running from something that _might_ happen. I mean… worst case scenario is that I die either way. With that outlook, I'd rather take the nice, least likely to be painless path."

"You know," Chris said, "that's probably the most I've ever really heard you speak about anything. In fact, even though you've just told me your life story, that's probably the most I've ever heard you talk about your life. Usually it's me talking to you about things. What's brought all this on?"

I shrugged. "Probably a moment of clarity between cravings for a fix. I've been so down lately, but on the train, I had time to think. Three hours nearly, most of which I spent wanting to stick a needle in myself and then arguing with myself about it. I realised I had to turn my life around… but nothing really clicked into place until you said about little things. Everything I've done so far has been massive leaps; I started off with less than a year to change things, now I've got about four months, maybe? I'd been so convinced I needed to stop everything with large gestures, I never really considered that maybe little things were what I had to do." I sighed and slid further into the sofa cushions. "It would have been so much easier if that damned celebi had left me an instruction booklet or something. It threw me in at the deep end; how could it not have expected me to do badly?"

Chris shrugged, suddenly solemn. "Sometimes you need to do things badly to understand how to do them well. For all the books I read and exams I had to take on pokémon breeding, they never really covered how to really look after pokémon. I ended up doing so many things wrong; feeding pokémon the wrong things, making them live in the wrong habitat that a lot of them ended up sick early on. You can be told the right way to do something, but you'll never learn to do it right unless you do it wrong first."

"You've done more than that wrong, haven't you?" I asked before I could stop myself. Chris looked at me sharply before finally her face fell and she hugged herself again.

"Everyone's done a lot of things wrong in their lives. Everyone has the things they'd wish they could do differently. Have you ever heard of the saying 'you can only regret what you never did'?" she asked me. When I nodded she sighed to herself. "I think that's a load of bullshit, personally. Sure, you can regret not doing a lot of things… but sometimes _doing_ something is possibly something that can haunt you for the rest of your life."

I scratched my chin and gave her a confused look. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

She sighed again and looked at the clock. "It's nearly two o'clock. You'll understand what I mean in a minute."

I had no clue as to what she meant, yet trusted her regardless. There was no indication of what I was waiting for, yet as the minute ticked by, Chris looked more and more nervous, yet guilty at the same time. It was almost like she was dreading what would happen next, yet staying hopeful all the same.

My questions were all answered when, at exactly fourteen hundred hours, the patio doors opened and a golden-furred wolf walked through them.

It stood tall on all fours, with thin, fine golden fur covering all its body, bar its chest, back and knees, where it became a dark, sandy brown-like colour. Its ears were curiously large and the fur above its mouth split almost like a moustache. Behind its two front paws were little pouches of brown-furred skin, within each was a single spoon-like object that seemed to be carved from bone. The pokémon grunted and stood on its hind legs, bone-spoons sliding out of their pouches and into the pokémon's waiting hands.

I stared at the pokémon and then snapped my head back to Chris. "You never mentioned that you had an alakazam," I accused. "Actually…" I said, thinking hard. "You've never really told me about any of your pokémon."

She winced and offered me a small smile. "Later," she told me before approaching the alakazam. The pokémon turned and growled as Chris approached, avoiding her completely as it made its way past her, towards a specific cupboard in the living room.

"Hey Mattie," Chris said to the pokémon, but was treated to nothing but a cold shoulder as the pokémon brushed by her, as if she wasn't even there. Chris looked as if her heart had broken in two as the pokémon ignored her, opened the cupboard and pulled out a small pot of pills. It opened the pot with psychic power, took out two pills, swallowed them and then replaced the pot, all with practiced ease. Then it dropped back to all fours, brushed silently past Chris again and left the house, shutting the door behind it.

The room felt cold behind it.

In the silence that followed, Chris looked like she was about to cry. She took a deep breath and sat down in the chair opposite me, digging her nails deeply into the chair's arms. "That was Matilda. She's own of my oldest pokémon."

I glanced back towards the door. "She doesn't seem to like you much."

Again I could see Chris' heart break. "What I did to her… I understand now I should never have done it. She got cancer a few years ago… while it was treatable; they told me that the only way to make sure she would never get it again was to remove the offending organ. She had ovarian cancer, so they performed a hysterectomy. I thought at the time it was the best solution; remove her womb so she wouldn't wither away and die.

"She's hated me for that decision ever since."

I couldn't understand why. Chris had saved her pokémon's life, yet earned its hatred in return? "But… why?" I asked.

Chris started mournfully after her alakazam. "While pokémon lay eggs, they still have wombs… sort of a genetic leftover from when they used to give live-births. They incubate the eggs there until the shells are hard enough to survive the world, then they lay them. Matilda never got the chance to have any cubs. It was only after I had her womb removed that I realised that's the one thing all alakazam long for; to be able to have a child that they can pass down all their knowledge to. She hates me because now I've forced her to live a life without meaning. Alakazam can live to over a hundred; she's only around twenty. She's reckless in battles now, because she's got nothing left to live for. And because I can't bear to let herself get killed in battle, she hates me all the more for it."

I frowned and tried to work my head around it. "So… she hates you because you want her to live? Can't she just like, adopt another pokémon?"

"It's not the same for psychics," Chris said with a shake of her head. "All psychics are mentally linked to their children from birth. It's like a maternal bond, but on another level. Even if she raised another pokémon and treated it like her child, it would never feel like hers to her, because she would never have the exact psychic bond with it. It would have been kinder to just let her die. Sometimes the best thing for the pokémon is the worst thing for us."

She took a sad breath and pulled herself back to reality. "Now, talking of worst things, I'm going to need whatever it is you've been taking since Fallarbor. You need to get yourself over it and I can't trust you with it. So hand it over," she said, pressing her hand out for emphasis.

I looked at her hand and felt my ears burn red as I tipped my bag upside down and watched the many vials slide out onto the table. Chris' eyes widened at the small pile before she leant forwards and picked one up. Almost immediately her eyes nearly fell out before she leapt at me, pulling me up by my collar.

"Tell me you haven't been injecting yourself with this," she hissed, more fear in her voice than anger. I managed to squeak a small answer, making her only throw me back into the chair in disgust.

"You have got to being kidding me," she hissed as she began pacing the room. "Do you have no brains at all? Are they even wired up in there? You know what this is? This is a painkiller for poisonous pokémon! Do you what goes into these things? Poisonous pokémon have loads of toxins naturally in their bodies; this has almost all of them mixed in, if only to make sure their bodies don't reject the drugs!"

"B-but," I stuttered. "Injecting that stopped my hand from becoming really infected!"

"Only because it was probably killing everything in your body, your _own_ body cells included!" she shrieked. "I… just… I mean… seriously? Fucking hell, did you even _think_ about what you were injecting yourself with? Sure, it's slightly medicinal like morphine, so you'll be sedated, but it's got so much else in it, I wouldn't be surprised if your liver's falling apart right now!"

I winced and subconsciously pressed a hand to my stomach, trying fruitlessly to feel my liver through my skin.

"Fuck…" she whispered in horrified awe. "Just promise me, no matter what, even if you fall off the wagon; never inject yourself with _anything_ like this again. You'd be in less danger if you went outside and licked a _grimer_ for heaven's sake!"

I winced at her tone and then retched at the mental imagery she provided. "I promise," I told her. "And there's something else," I said as I reached for my bag. "I want you to take this. I don't trust myself with any of it; I could use it to get more. Plus, it should more than cover everything you spent to look after Alistair," I said as I opened my bag again, this time unloading all the money I stole from the Fallarbor gym.

Chris looked at it, her mouth open ever-so-slightly before she stared at me. "Where did you-no. I don't want to know where you got this from. I can't take this. It's over ten times what looking after Alistair cost me, plus you need money to buy clothes and potions and everything like that."

I shook my head. "I know what that usually costs. I've made by all this time with rarely more than about a few hundred poké to my name. Having all that… there's just too much temptation. I'd rather it go to you… you can do some good with it." I smiled and stood up, heading for the patio doors. "I'm going to go find Alistair; take the money, leave it, hide it or whatever. I'm not fussed."

I felt my smile curl into a tiny laugh at Chris' amazed stutter as I left her room. While there may have been some guilt that lead me to give her all the money, the majority of it did come from the fact that I didn't trust myself around it. It was the best way to deal with the entire situation.

Though leaving Chris to her own devices also brought up one problem for me; how was I to find Alistair?

_[I am to assume you are looking for me, sir?]_

I yelped and jumped out of my skin, clutching my rapidly-beating heart and glancing around my entire surroundings. There was no sight of Alistair anywhere nearby, at least, until I glanced up towards the roof and found him sat atop the building, cross legged and leaning on his knees.

_[I have known you have been back for some time, yet I assumed it best for you to converse with Ms. Taylor.]_

"Ms. Taylor?" I echoed, confused for a brief moment. "Oh, so you mean Chris? Yeah… I kinda did need to talk to her for a bit. Thanks, I guess."

He smiled and pressed a hand to his head, almost as if he were tipping his hat. _[It was no trouble to me. I could sense that you had many problems plaguing your mind, sir. It seemed as if you needed someone to converse with; someone whose opinion you would listen to. I would have tried myself, yet I understand you do not wish to listen to what I have to say.]_

I frowned and felt a little pang of guilt stab through my chest. "That's not true… exactly."

I felt a laugh bounce around inside my mind. _[Good sir, I may not be proficient in telepathy, nor most psychic abilities, yet I do know when I am being lied to. Your hatred of my kind clouds your judgement of me.]_ I squinted past sunlight to watch him fold his arms and lean back smugly. _[Yet I know that you are slowly working past such bigotry, sir. Your actions prior to sending me here, even afterwards, make it clear that you are afraid of yourself; you rid yourself of me, because you do not like the fact you may be bonding with me.]_

I snorted and crossed my own arms, despite the fact my ears began to burn. "I don't like you psychics, you know? Getting into my brain and putting thoughts there, it's not exactly polite."

The laugh was there again. _[Good sir, accuse all you like, but I do not lie. You hold concern for my wellbeing, otherwise you would not have been thinking so loudly about finding me.] _He stood suddenly and leapt off the roof with a spin, before landing nimbly in a crouch at my feet. As he stood back up, a smirk crawled across his face. _[You are, in many ways, a paradox, sir. You do not care about any but yourself, yet I see how much you worry for your pokémon. You bare no concern towards the fate of many, yet still wish to be able to help them. I do not know why this is… but I suspect it is due to how strange you feel.]_

I rolled my eyes. "This again, huh? Something about me that you can't establish, but if you were a better psychic, you could? Is it going to be something like I'm real, but not? I'm alive, but I'm dead? Maybe I'm a man, but really a woman?"

_[That last one seems the most plausible, sir,]_ he said with a smirk.

"You're funny," I deadpanned. "Only I could be lucky enough to come across a sarcastic butler-like gallade."

_[I may treat all with respect, but that does not mean I do not have wit, sir.]_ He folded his arms again, expression becoming solemn. _[For what it is worth; I am sorry for what happened with the metallic avian. I knew we were to meet again, though I do wish it were under better circumstances.]_

I felt hollowed out in an instant. "Yeah… so do I," I whispered as I scratched at my elbow. "But there's nothing we can do now."

Alistair bowed his head. _[Perhaps not for her. But I think that, if done properly, it can be prevented from happening to anyone else.]_

* * *

I cursed as boiling-hot kettle water spilt all over the kitchen counter and dripped little splashes onto my feet.

My hands shook violently, twitching erratically and making my whole arms move with unconscious effort. I cursed again and tried to find something to clean it all up.

Only to have a heart attack when I found a pissed-looking black man behind me.

"What'chu think you doin' here boy?" he screamed in my face with a thick foreign accent. I yelped and jumped away from him, splashing water wildly from the kitchen counter.

Finally my heart stopped racing and a little bit of clarity jumped into me. "What… what're you doing here? Chris' place isn't open at the moment. And I don't remember hearing the doorbell go."

He frowned at me, thick grey eyebrows glaring viciously at me. "You think I'm stealin'?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and took as deep a shallow breath as I could. "I can't say for sure, but you're wandering around here pretty early in the morning. Though you're also talking to me… which probably means that you're quite the stupid burglar."

He glared at me again, though quickly backed away when Chris walked into the room, face crossed between anger and embarrassment.

"_Da-ad!"_ she wailed in horror and shoved him away from me. "Why do you always have to do this? Seriously? I know you have fun with the whole angry black man routine, but _why_ do you always do it to my friends?"

He grinned suddenly, a few wrinkles framing his aged face. "Ah, come on! Can't an old man have a little bit of fun now and again?" he asked, accent becoming normal Hoennese.

I blinked and realised just how similar to Chris he looked. Granted he had close-cut, grey curly hair and even a black moustache stained grey, but otherwise, they seemed to have the same nose, eyes and ears. I slowly realised it was all some sort of perverse joke; Chris' dad playing on social stereotypes to freak people out.

I glared at Chris, almost as if I could scold her for not warning me about her dad any sooner.

She sighed and buried her face in a hand. "Dad, _seriously_. I'm twenty-three; you're supposed to actually have stopped trying to embarrass me like I'm still a teenager!"

Her dad smirked. "And why not? You try to embarrass me around my friends; I actually _can_ embarrass you in front of your friends."

She growled and shoved him again. "_One day_. You come to visit for just _one_ day and manage to mortify me beyond all belief within the first ten minutes."

I felt incredibly awkward and tried to make my way subtly out the room. As soon as I managed to take a step, however, there was suddenly a large shattering sound from the living room. Chris growled again and cursed as a woman shouted an apology.

"Ten more hours…" Chris muttered to herself. "I swear I should have become a pathologist. Dealing with dead things. At least you two wouldn't be able to embarrass me in front of them."

A small, brown skinned woman appeared in the kitchen doorway, her long black hair tied into a bun atop her head. I gathered instantly she was Chris' mother, just from the fact that Chris somehow looked exactly like her too. Seeing them all together, it was like Chris was the perfect split image of them both.

Her mother smile sheepishly and held up two large fragments of a broken plate. "I do hope this wasn't expensive…"

Chris growled to herself. "_No_ Mother, I knew you were coming so I hid everything that was slightly expensive. How you ever managed to be a pokémon trainer is beyond me."

Her mother rolled her eyes. "Very funny Carishna. Do not forget who looked after all your pokémon when you were little. I'm the one who rescued your pidgey when you accidentally sucked him into the hoover!"

I choked on my laugh at that mental image.

"I hate my parents…" Chris moaned. "Please, someone tell me I'm actually talking to some sort of psychic hallucination."

I smiled sheepishly and tried to push past everyone as quickly and gently as I could. "I'll… uh, leave you guys to it then. Go train my pokémon."

"Are you sure I can't bribe you to spend the day with my parents?" Chris begged me. "Really? They're not so bad. Not as long as you're related to them."

"Besides," her dad said, "if we were only hallucinations, only you would be able to hear the many stories we had to tell about you when-"

"_No more talking!_" Chris yelped and shoved him again. "We're leaving, _now!_ If you want a tour, fine. But no more talking to my friends!"

I laughed at their antics, feeling a little pang of sadness that I never got to know my own family in such a way.

I made my way outside and released my pokémon, bar Erra. I'd tried letting her out the first day I'd spend at Chris' – the magnemite had tried to attack every pokémon that Chris owned and was looking after. I still hadn't fully figured out what was wrong with her, though I'd managed to book an appointment in Mauville's pokémon centre to get Erra fully checked out.

Loki scampered across the grass happily, plucking random blades and collecting a small pile before throwing them at Xander. The lombre retorted by soaking Loki with little blasts of water, splashing the ground around them and covering the sableye in mud. Scar growled at them both as they approached, watching them warily as the two pokémon crept around him, balls of mud in hand, ready to strike.

I felt Alistair laughing behind me and turned around in curiosity. I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering just what was so funny.

_[This reminds him of another time,]_ the gallade informed me. _[It is rather amusing to see a creature full of such rage suddenly full of joy.]_

I nodded and looked back to my other pokémon. Scar was under attack on both sides from Xander and Loki. Finally the charmeleon snorted black smoke at them both, covering them in obscurity before he snarled and kicked wet mud at them both. The smaller pokémon yelped and retreated, grumbling and mumbling with each other whilst they gave Scar looks born of conspiracy.

"How does this remind him of another time?" I wondered.

Alistair hummed as he stepped beside me. _[You do not know the history of the flamed lizard, do you?]_

I shook my head. "I don't know the history for any of you guys. I know a lot about Lacey's, but that's only because she knows a lot about charades. All the others… there's no real way I can talk to them. I've never really been able to find out much."

_[It is a shame that we cannot all converse so well,]_ Alistair said, his voice low and barely above a whisper. _[Every creature has a story; each deserves to be heard, no matter how dull. The fiery lizard's is not dull, however. He was a second to a clan-]_

"What's a second?" I interrupted, earning a scowl from my gallade.

_[The longest thought you have ever had, sir,]_ Alistair replied, a smirk stretching across his face. _[In the fire lizard's clan, a second is the… deputy, in human terms. They have a leader, then a second, who looks after the clan in the leader's absence. While the leader controls and organises the entire clan, the second maintains the clan's general behaviour, in addition to caring for the infants.]_

I felt a smirk come across my own face. "So Scar was like a nanny for all of them?"

Alistair shrugged. _[If you wish to use such an analogy, medieval as it is, sir. He was his clan's second. Human poachers raided their clan. They stole the infants and killed those who fought back; the leader included. Although you do not see it often, the fiery lizard is a protector. He wishes to protect you and your comrades now, because he failed in protecting his clan.]_

I saw Scar in a new light as he chased after Loki and Xander, snapping and hissing at them both. "That's why he hates humans, isn't it?" I guessed. "They destroyed his clan and left him alive, even though they injured him."

_[That is correct, sir,]_ Alistair said with a nod. _[You cared for him when he was injured and managed to have the bullet removed from his hip. You earned his trust and respect by showing that you could care for him, even when he wished you dead. Now you trouble all of your pokémon by seeking to destroy yourself, rather than aide and protect them. I know what the fiery lizard did, sir. Your mind is very hard to send messages to, harder still to read. The fiery lizard's however, is as easy as most pokémon's. His actions were rash, but he did them with good intentions.]_

"I know that," I said as I scratched at the bandage covering the wound. "I just never would have figured Scar to be the big brother sort."

The gallade looked at me and offered another shrug, his skin-cloak floating in the slight breeze. _[People and pokémon both can have hidden depths. Sir, please understand; I do not tell you this because I wish you to pity the fire lizard. I tell you this so you can better understand him; know what he has lost and what he stands to lose still. You may not care about the fate of many, but you have shown to him that you can care for the few. You often think that you are a soldier, as humans call it. Tell me, what happens when you try to save everyone?]_

"You end up killing them all," I answered without a moment's pause. I stared at my three pokémon for a second before glancing back at Alistair. "Is this some sort of hint you're trying to give me here? Chris has already said I should do little things. You're saying I should expect people to die?"

_[I know only what I overhead,_] he told me as he folded his arms. _[I am unable to see the future, but that does not mean I am a fool. You were chosen by Celebi for a reason, whether or not you were its first choice. That would mean you already possess the knowledge you need to complete your task. You have thought this already, have you not, sir?]_

I grimaced and scratched the back of my neck. "Well, yeah, but then I kinda dismissed it afterwards. I mean, it never really seemed like I'd be able to do much. I mean, as far as I know, I'm meant to save the world. That means big, global sort of scale, doesn't it?"

The gallade snorted. _[Hardly. Sometimes, the smallest actions have the largest consequences. One man discovered the technology to create poké balls, now they are mass-produced and are an everyday item. Well over a thousand years ago, one man discovered penicillin by complete accident. Now it is one of the most important things in the world. The smallest actions by one man can have the most drastic of consequences.]_

I rolled my eyes, hugged myself and turned away from him. "True, but… why me? I mean, by the sounds of it, I've already managed to start the beginnings of war between Sinnoh and Hoenn, all because I killed someone, thinking it would be for the greater good. What if I keep trying to help and making things worse?"

_[Doing harm whilst attempting to do good is bad. But doing nothing when given the chance to help is so much worse.]_ Alistair hummed to himself as he sat in a lotus position, crimson eyes scanning the world around us. _[You think you have caused war, but have you really? Can you see the future? You humans, along with so many other short-lived species are never able to see larger pictures. You always see the small; the immediate. It is your greatest strength, in addition to being your worst weakness.]_

"So what am I supposed to do then?" I asked him. "Don't do anything unless I've planned out every possible way that something can happen? Think only about what could happen eighty years from now, rather than in the direct future?"

_[No,] _he informed me calmly. _[You must think on the consequences of your actions, but you must never become blinded by them. You must act for the good of the future, but never fail to see the struggles of the present. You should… be who you are, for you were chosen for a reason, sir.]_

I screamed and squeezed my head with my fists. "What you're saying makes no sense! Think about something, but don't think about it? Do what's best for the future, as well as what's best for now? What if they conflict?" I growled and dropped my arms. "And now you're going to tell me to stop overthinking things, aren't you?"

There was a laugh that bounced around in my brain. _[And you did not believe me when I said you were bonding with me, sir. For twenty minutes we have conversed, in which time you have paid nearly no attention to your other pokémon.]_

I glared at the pokémon. "I really don't like you. You're aware of that, right?"

He smiled once more. _[I am aware that you believe so.]_

I gave him another sharp look. "I _really_ don't like you."

* * *

It was evening by the time I made my way back into Chris' house. The entire house was eerily quiet, lacking any of the normal sounds that it possessed. Even the growlithe puppy, who was so often running around happily and causing so much noise seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.

"Chris?" I asked the empty hallways. There was no answer, only making me think I was completely alone.

I glanced around and found the cupboard that Chris had hidden my drugs in. My mouth dried and salivated instantly afterwards, my arms and hands beginning to shake as I thought of the possibilities. I could shoot up and get away with it. What they didn't know, right?

I growled at myself and snatched my hand away, refusing to look at the cupboard. I'd managed three days trying to beat withdrawal symptoms; I didn't want to suddenly throw it all away.

_[Troubles, sir?]_ Alistair asked me. I jumped around and found the gallade leaning against the doorframe, arms folded and a curious glance across his face.

"No!" I yelped, snatching my arms back and trying to look as innocent as possible. I gave my pokémon a sheepish glance, hoping he could somehow be fooled.

Alistair just shook his head at me. _[Do not fall, sir. There is no progress if you only move backwards.]_

I glared at the pokémon and pinched the skin of my elbow. He bowed his head once before withdrawing silently out of the doors, leaving me to my thoughts.

I blew my hair from my face and wondered just how much Alistair seemed to know. It was nice to finally have a pokémon of mine I could actually have a conversation with, rather than my usual guessing games.

I jumped as the wooden boards behind me creaked. My hands jumped for my weapons, only for me to remember I'd hidden them whilst I was staying with Chris. Instead I turned around and found myself alone in the room with Chris' dad.

"That's an interesting pokémon you've got there," he said as he stared after Alistair. "Is he the father to the ralts Chris is looking after?"

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "No, they're all Chris'. I think Alistair's far too respectful to ever go near another pokémon in that sort of way."

"Pokémon are just confusing," Chris' dad said. "It just makes me happy I only ever deal with humans. Sick humans, granted, but I can understand them so much more than pokémon."

I put two and two together quite quickly. "So you're a doctor then?" Subconsciously I tried to hide my shaking hands behind my back, hoping he wouldn't be able to figure out my little drug withdrawal. I had the feeling he wouldn't be too impressed by it; though I really didn't want to get Chris into any trouble with her parents for looking after me.

"Have been for some time," he said with a nod. "I think it's probably what made Chris want to become a breeder; she grew up with me being able to help people and wanted to do it herself. But when she discovered pokémon instead, she seemed to want to look after them all instead."

"I never thought she would have always wanted to become a breeder," I admitted. "I always thought she turned to it as a backup career… you know after the whole..." I motioned towards my arm, gesturing cutting it off below the shoulder.

"That certainly pressed her into chasing her goals a lot sooner, but it wasn't a decision she made because of it." He rubbed a hand across his face and glanced into the hallway behind him. "Is Chris… does she seem happy here? I don't see her all the time and because I'm her dad, she doesn't want me to worry. The problem is; I always did worry, even before she lost her arm. I'm proud of her and how much she's managed to achieve… but she'll never let me know if she's not happy."

I considered what he said before I finally shrugged. "From what I've seen, she enjoys what she does. Sure, she's got all the stresses that no doubt come with her job, but from the way she talks about her job, as well as what she's learnt… you can tell she enjoys it."

A smile bloomed across his face. "Thanks. It's good to hear that. And sorry for before. Chris didn't inherit all of my humour and she seems to forget just how mad her old man is.

"By the way," he asked before he left, "how long have you been using?"

I managed to choke on my own saliva before I floundered uselessly for a convincing lie. Finally I just gave up and opted for the truth. "I don't know. A few weeks, I think. I didn't exactly make the choice; I did quite literally get bound up and injected with the stuff." I scratched at my elbow subconsciously, feeling my cheeks burn a little in joint humiliation and embarrassment. "Chris is… somehow managing to help me. Probably because she scares me," I admitted with a laugh. "I got here about three days ago. Things have been bad, but she's helped me through it all."

"That's my girl," he said with a wistful smile. "She's always helping her friends. There is just one thing though-"

Suddenly he managed to grab me by the collar and hoisted me up a good few inches off the ground, his face awash with a serious calm. "Hurt her and I _will_ bury you."

I nodded quickly and offered as much of a reassuring smile as I could. "I promise you, I'm not going to hurt her," I swore as I managed to hold my palms up. "If anything, she's more likely to rip my arms off if anything goes bad."

He gave a stiff nod. "Good. She might be able to look out for herself now, but I'll still protect Chris anyway I can. Remember that."

I gulped and managed a small, quick nod to his back. My thoughts began to wander as he went to speak with Chris again. He wasn't above killing to protect the ones he loved. In a way, I could relate to him.

"You look deep in thought," Chris said as she walked back into the room, drying her real hand on her top.

"Yeah," I grunted. I crossed my legs on the sofa and leant on my knees. "Just… trying to figure out what I need to do. I've got no clue. Small things, little actions. Knowing I need to do that is all well and good… but I don't know what I need to actually stop or start."

"I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out," Chris said reassuringly. "If not, maybe head towards Mossdeep? There's the psychic gym there; surely they'll be able to help you somehow?"

I frowned and thought about it. Really, how much use were the gyms to me? They hadn't really opened any new avenues for me, apart from letting me try and blend in with other trainers.

"I don't think I want to bother with gyms anymore," I told her. "I've got no chance of getting the full set of twenty badges in time and convincing people things need to be done. And really; why _would_ they believe me? People are too selfish – if I told them what the world was going to end up like, how many of them would try and help stop it? Most would just try and save themselves."

"Which is exactly what you've been trying to do," Chris pointed out, a smirk on her face.

I felt heat rise in my face. "Yeah… well… that's not my point!" I floundered. "I want to save myself… but I don't want anything like Fallarbor happening again. I just need to figure out what I need to do first."

Chris shrugged and began unhooking her artificial arm. "Go to Fortree. They have houses built into the trees and mountains that overlook the entirety of Hoenn. Nothing seems to set your mind into action better than being able to stare at the entire world from above. I did that after I lost my arm and finally got out of hospital; Owen was dead, my parents were beside themselves with worry and Ayd was pretty much a wreck too. I needed to figure out what was happening with my life. So I found the highest point in Kanto and just sat there for a day, staring out at the world and thinking things over."

"Just because it worked for you doesn't mean it will work for me," I pointed out.

"Maybe not," she conceded. "But you can't expect to get all the answers from random pieces of common sense that your friends tell you. Likewise, your gallade isn't going to be able to tell you everything you need to do. Sometimes, you need to figure things out on your own."

I smirked and laughed to myself. "Where do you get all of these deep bits of advice from? Usually you seem to busy cursing at paperwork or being buried alive by pokémon food to sit around and think up intelligent things to say."

She snorted and threw a cushion at me. "You've gotta remember; I'm a lot older than you. I was travelling from the age of ten; I know a fair bit about the world, if I do say so myself. You might have had a harsher life, but I've got more experience of life under my belt." She smiled and colour rose in her cheeks. "Plus it helps that I happen to have a boyfriend who comes out with random bits of useless insight into things."

"So is this the time that you finally start talking about him?" I probed, grinning all the while. Though just as quickly as my grin appeared, it vanished. "I'm getting in the way by staying here, aren't I? You should be with him, not putting up with me."

Chris just rolled her eyes and laughed. "Hardly. I'm self-employed, he works full time. This week's bad for us, because I'm working all day every day, whereas he's working all night, every night this week. By the time one of us had driven to see the other, they'd already be at least an hour into work. I knew doctors worked heavy weeks, but I never figured nurses did too."

I snorted into my hand. "Your boyfriend… is a _nurse?"_ I cackled, unable to stop myself laughing.

"Yes, he's a male nurse," Chris said with palpable boredom towards the topic. "Laugh it up all you like, but I like him. Adryan and his boyfriend like him too."

"Ayd has a boyfriend too?" I queried, momentarily stunned. Then the laughter returned. "Please don't tell me he's a nurse too! That would be… well, kinda clichéd and make Ayd hate me for all the jokes I'd like to make. By the way, your mum called you something else, didn't she? Your parents call you different names?"

Chris laughed and picked underneath her thumb. "Yeah. Long story there. Short version; my parents come from different cultural backgrounds. Mum wanted a meaningful, culture-representing name, Dad wanted to name me Christina. They reached a compromise; Mum gave me the first name Carishna, Dad calls me Chris, but made sure my middle name's Tina, so in a way, they both got what they wanted."

I raised an eyebrow and chuckled a little. "So most people have two surnames. You're just weird enough to get two _first_ names instead."

Another cushion nearly took my head off. "You're quick to change your tune. Not so long ago you were moping around because you didn't know what to do. Now you're able to sit there and make jokes at the expense of mine and Adryan's personal lives."

I just shrugged. "I guess… I guess I'm just getting fed up of being gloomy all the time. I mean; I've realised that I've become something I'm not. I just threw away everything I knew about being a soldier. I know that if I want to get anywhere, I'm going to have to start acting like that again. But… it's not like my future. I don't need to be on red-alert all the time. I can lighten up when I'm with my friends."

Just like that, Chris burst out laughing. "Oh gods. Sorry, but, I think you're broken! I mean what happened to the emo child? Now you're all smiles and jokes? You're broken!"

I scowled at her. "You're a great friend, you know that?"

"Insulting people is always fun; it's one of the things I picked up when travelling with Ayd." She laughed and winked as she stood up. "Though, as long as it's done in a friendly way, of course." She glanced towards the clock and growled about never having enough time before starting to clean up after herself. "I need to feed the nocturnals. Feed the dark pokémon, will you? They seem to like you?"

"Manual labour?" I whined and made an attempt towards an innocent face. "_Really?_"

She rolled her eyes and pretended to throw a cup at me. "I told you the first day you got here and I'm telling you again; you're not staying here for free. I don't care if you did give me the massive pile of money, you're still not getting away with a free run here."

"Fine," I grunted with acted annoyance. "Slavedriver."

I think she liked being in charge. She always claimed it was because she wanted to help people, but maybe that was the real reason she surprised me by doing what she did.


	41. Identities

_**Author's note: **_Hello everyone. I'd just like to say that although the updates seem to be sparse compared to what they have been, this is likely to continue until June, after which I'll be able to update this as per the old, once a week/ten days update. Also, for a bit of shamless self-plugging, feel free to check out my other story 'Plague'. It's only just started, but it involves pokemon... and zombies.

* * *

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Identities.**

* * *

_Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation _~ Oscar Wilde

**-O-O-O-**

"_Who are we, if not for the impressions we give? We behave one way to one person, another to another. Are we one single identity, or all of them that we show?"_

- Carmine Jacobs, psychologist and Undella Town Gym Leader 3003 – 3019. (September 29th, 3005)

**-O-O-O-**

Everything was going to change soon.

I held Lacey's poké ball in the air and glared up at it, trying to see through the metal in the vain hope that I could see the pokémon inside.

She was going to come out of the ball fully evolved soon. I'd decided to give up on my gym-badge chase. My goals were on trying to stop whatever I needed to stop; my only leads were that strange company I'd heard so little about; the ones releasing chemicals into towns. I'd heard the strange man on the boat into Slateport saying something in a foreign language – while I didn't know what he'd said, I knew that it certainly sounded suspicious.

I knew I could change things. Lacey was a meticulous, devoted killer. She'd spent a long time waiting in that cottage of hers where I'd caught her, slowly planning out things to kill people. She could plan far ahead. With Alistair able to translate, I could use her to help me see what I needed to do.

The pokémon by my side hissed violently. I smiled a little and laughed slightly before I reached out and scratched it behind the ears. Akshar, the supposedly territorial, violent weavile that Chris owned purred happily, rubbing her furry cheeks against my hand.

I snorted a small laugh, breath forming mist before my eyes. I embraced the cold and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, happy in the cold, never having to endure the heat again.

When I left the ice enclosure, it took me two steps before I was withering under the heat once more.

"I hate Hoenn's heat," I muttered to the heavens. I fanned my shirt in a futile attempt to get some air onto my body before I let Scar out to join me. "I'm still figuring out the logic in calling out a fiery lizard when I'm already boiling hot," I grouched to him. He looked at me, cocked his head and let out a tiny conversational hiss.

"Whatever," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Look, I wanted to talk to you anyway. Plus, I've got time to waste, seeing as Chris' boyfriend is round. Her parents were only here a couple of days ago, now her lover… I'm getting the feeling I should really scram and let her live her on life. I need to get going and sort out what I'm doing anyway."

Scar growled and nudged my forearm with his head. I grunted a small laugh of realisation. "Okay." I waved a hand at him. "I get it. I'm babbling. But I feel I've got to explain things to you – you guys are hidden away in your poké balls whenever I'm talking to other people."

He growled impatiently again.

"Alright," I said with a laugh. "Okay, plan from now; we're going to find out what we need to do to make sure everything goes the way that stupid celebi wants it to. I'm not sure what it involves… bar a load of recon and intel gathering on my behalf." I stopped walking and turned to face Scar. "Alistair told me about what you used to be for your clan."

The lizard's eyes narrowed quickly, acrid smoke slowly seeping out of his nostrils. I held my palms up in surrender and shook my head at him.

"I've got nothing bad to say," I told him. "It's just… I think I'll need you to take that role on again… for me. I need someone-_thing _to keep me in line, what with all the…" I waved a hand above my abused elbow and let Scar gather the message. "So I need to make sure I'm being kept on the straight and narrow to what needs to be done. Lacey's too psychotic to take on this role, Loki too immature, Alistair's too bound up in his own code of honour, as is Xander. With both of them, they'd try and stop me from killing someone in cold blood if I needed to.

"Erra…" I whistled and placed my hands behind my head. "I took her to the pokémon centre for a check. After she tried to attack everyone there and got sedated, they found out she's been injected with some experimental chemical. After that, there was a load of scientific mumbo-jumbo that I really didn't understand. But it all boils down to some sort of chemical that's blocking her emotions… or something. It's like it's producing too much adrenaline and suppressing everything else, bar her long-term memory. That's why she doesn't attack us.

"Apparently it could take up to another few weeks for it all to work out of her system," I explained to Scar. "After that, they said there could still be some lingering traces of it in her system… which means anything could be happening. But anyway, as I was trying to say originally; you're the one pokémon I can actually trust whole-heartedly to do what needs to be done and make sure it's the best for everyone, not just a select few."

He growled happily and nudged his head against me once more. I snorted a laugh and pushed him away, smiling all the while.

Scar growled again. I just sighed and stared up at the sky, watching some of the flying pokémon soar around Chris' ranch. I knew I needed to get back into being a soldier… the only question was whether or not I would be able to ease back into it.

* * *

I growled as I ran a hand through my hair, swearing as my fingers got caught between the strands. It wasn't taking long to memorise the maps and figure out where I needed to go – the only problem was that it was taking longer than I would have liked.

I was out of practice. I knew that. On some level, I had made peace with that. But panic was beginning to set in again. Less than four months to struggle blind against the future. Every second had to count, surely.

Once more I sighed and squeezed my eyeballs. They tingled with the strange pain of excessive strange, yet I'd been reading for less than an hour. I shook my head and pushed past it, tracing a finger across the maps again. I had to head towards Fortree City. It was next on the gym circuit, but that was no longer my concern.

It was more because of something Chris had told me. She'd mentioned that it was one of the highest points in Hoenn. The highest point meant that I'd be able to see a lot of the world. I could scope out Hoenn from there and hopefully build an idea of strategy if something went wrong. I knew what the future entailed. I knew what places had supposedly fallen; I had the knowledge of mundane, near-primitive methods of building defence when compared to the modern day I was in; with the technology available, it meant there had to be methods to build steady foundations.

Once I was sure I'd memorised it, I folded up my maps and stuffed them into my bag. I took another moment to go over everything in my head again before I was sure I was ready to go.

As soon as I hit the hallway the distant sound of giggles hit my ears. I rolled my eyes and made loud gagging sounds as I entered the living room to find Chris and her boyfriend sharing a seat, in the middle of what looked like a tickle fight.

"Jealous," Chris accused me with a wink. She floated along in nothing but a long black, shirt – one that looked like it definitely had to belong to a man. I didn't need to guess where that came from.

"I'm stuck on trying to figure out whether making a joke about him being jealous of you is going to end badly for me."

I shot a glance at Chris and had to laugh. It would definitely end in pain for him.

Blue eyes, brown hair that flopped in an unruly mess around his head, a thin layer of stubble and a well-built body; he looked like a normal sort of man… for a nurse.

Granted, I was still slightly expecting him to turn out to have some sort of freaky amputee-fetish.

"There will be bad pain for you, Jonathon," Chris warned him with a flirtatious grin. "Remember that robo-arm has a few wondrous settings that I can use to harm you."

He turned several shades of white at the thought alone. He quickly disguised it and leapt out of the chair with a grin, putting his hands on Chris' hips and leaning into her back.

I didn't hear what he said and I was pretty sure I didn't want to hear what he said.

"Shush!" Chris berated him, shoving him away playfully. "We've got a kid in the room! You'll ruin his childhood innocence!"

"Hey!" I yelled at her. "Not a kid! Seventeen here! And innocence?" I laughed scornfully at the idea. "I don't think I've ever heard of that word being used to describe me."

"Yeah, military kid here," Jonathon said, waving his hand at me. "They usually just rush in and blow things up. No one needs innocence when you're able to blow things into little tiny smithereens."

I rolled my eyes, all in good-nature. Apparently Jonathon used to be in the navy and there was supposedly some sort of mostly-friendly rivalry between members of the navy and army. I didn't understand it and didn't want to admit I had no clue what a navy was – in my future, we'd never really needed to delve hundreds of feet below the ocean for recon. No one could pilot them, let alone repair them and they were generally viewed as death traps, only to be used in dire emergencies.

A little bit of research told me all I needed to know about the navy.

"You're just jealous I get to do the cool things," I shot back. "Instead you're stuck for months on end under the sea with someone trying to dock in your port."

He laughed. "Like I've never heard that one before. Becoming a nurse doesn't help things either." He put his arms around Chris' stomach from behind and squeezed. "Yet I end up with the gorgeous girl and army boy's still stuck blowing things up. Explosives and girlfriends don't mix, you know? You either get itty-bitty chunks of girlfriend, or left at home cradling the dynamite stick." He blinked as Chris and I both laughed. "_Not _a euphemism, by the way."

Chris' laugh died as she pressed a hand to her head. "Please don't start calling it that, whatever you do. You're so dumped if that happens."

He pouted and rubbed his cheek against the side of her head. "Can I at least start shouting 'kaboom!' when-"

I clamped my hands over my ears. "Not listening!" I yelped. "_So_ don't need to hear anything you're saying. Going now. Fortree will be nice and safe, far away from sickeningly-sweet couples that I'm forced to share a house with."

"Prude," Chris accused me. She detached herself from her boyfriend long enough to give me a quick hug. "You know what you're doing from here on in, right?"

I nodded as I pulled away, heading for the door. "Yeah, off to Fortree to find a way to… well, you know."

She smiled. "Right. You know I'm on the other side of the phone if you need anything, right? Next time, don't hide away, thinking I'm going to go all crazy about anything."

Jonathon appeared in the hallway and sat on the bottom of the staircase. "Yeah, I'm sure he'd never think you're crazy. I mean, you've never threatened to make your arm suddenly have the strength of three machamp, just to crush your enemies."

I held back a laugh and raised an eyebrow. "You have _enemies?"_

She blew a breath, clearly flustered as a blush covered her face. "This is why I let people I know never meet each other. At least this is still so much better than when Ayd was here. I should never have had to endure my best friend and my boyfriend discussing my breasts."

I couldn't hold back the laugh. "They _what?"_

"Don't you think Chris should wear low-cut tops more often?" Jonathon asked me. "Adryan agreed; she shouldn't hide what she's got."

My laugh became a nervous chuckle at the deadly look Chris got. "So urm, I think that's up to her. I know better than to side against her in an argument."

The woman in question rubbed her temples. "I'm going to start developing a complex soon, aren't I? I'm going to spend all day worried that I'm actually an angry, violent harpy, just because my friends all typecast me as one."

I craned my head to wink at Jonathon. "Good luck!" There was an evil smile that crossed my face as his own fell. "I'll see you soon Chris."

"Sure thing," she said as she pulled me into another hug. "Come back soon, alright? Next time, don't wait until things are bad. And let me know if things go bad with… _everything._"

"Will do," I promised her.

Jonathon waved at me. "See ya again army drone. Nice meeting ya."

I tried to think of a comeback, only to fail completely. Instead I just bid him goodbye too and headed towards Mauville, silently hoping that everything would work out nicely and neatly for once.

* * *

The forests near Fortree freaked me out. It was like after a certain point they became one large, all-encompassing mass that threatened to swallow up everything that tried to move past them.

It made me put a little bit more effort into slicing through the large, broad-leafed plants that all seemed to be in the way. After restocking in Mauville, I was thankful I'd bought the machete; though I did curse myself continually for wandering aimlessly away from the path cut through the forest.

It was all because I'd seen a little bit of green from the corner of my eye and heard a lot of buzzing. My heart felt like it was trying to kung fu its way out of my chest as I stalked what I thought was a celebi, only to find out it was just a scyther stalking through the grass.

Then I tried to capture it and got just a little bit lost in doing so.

"Damn scyther," I muttered to myself as I wiped my sweaty brow. I cursed once more and stared up towards the skyline, trying to see any trace of a town in the distance. All I could see was green, with the occasional hint of blue sky or brown tree bark poking through. "Ignore your instincts and _don't_ make a note of where you're going as you track the deadly predator with blades for arms. I'm such a credit to my army!"

I spat on the floor in frustration before hacking my way through the undergrowth again. Scar had managed to fight off the scyther enough for it to flee back into the undergrowth, leaving us alone in the ever-growing forest.

"And of course, I'm wandering through a forest that has to be densely packed with predators, talking to myself and giving away my position."

I stopped walking and managed to stop myself from hitting my forehead with my hand. I'd made the decision to go back to being a soldier to get where I needed to go. It just seemed without the harsh commanders overlooking every inch of training I did, alongside the constant threat of death looming over my neck; I wasn't much of a solider.

Then again, it wasn't like we were ever given the opportunity to have time off and understand who we really were. It made me wonder what I'd be like if I'd never been chosen by that celebi; if it had never picked me from the thousands it undoubtedly had.

Maybe I'd still be lost in my own world, part-hating, part-fearing pokémon and gunning them down freely.

Or maybe I'd just be dead.

When my chest started vibrating, I was fairly certain that was something both worlds would have in common.

I managed a short curse until I realised just where it was coming from; my poké ball bandolier. I snatched Lacey's poké ball off it instinctively and dropped it just as it exploded in a brilliant flash of white light.

Then just like that, Lacey was stood before me. Her arms and legs were dark brown, twisted and knotted; branching off into large, hideous claws and just generally looked like they belonged on a creepy tree in the middle of a haunted forest. Thick, shaggy white hair grew out of her entire body - bar her arms, legs and her long, pointed brown nose.

Her deadly yellow eyes rolled round to me and the corners of her mouth twitched into a little grin. She lifted up her hands to analyse them; three thick fern leaves grew from each wrist, with vines snaking from their stems, up her arms and under the white hair that covered her body.

"You're back," I said, her grin rapidly becoming contagious.

She rolled her eyes and I just had to laugh. It was great to have her back, even if it was graced with silent sarcasm. The joy quickly faded though as I remembered everything that had happened; everything that I needed to tell her.

Then suddenly she just grunted and nodded at me. I felt an eyebrow rise as she grunted once more, then just decided to point at my head, then at hers.

"Oh, right," I muttered. Shiftry could read minds. It meant I had two mind-readers on my team.

I wasn't too fussed with the knowledge that she could read my mind. I would have just been a little worried if I could read hers. No doubt it was full of deprave, murderous thoughts, far worse than what my own brain could ever come up with.

Then Lacey slapped me in the head.

"Ow!" I yelped and ducked away from her. She smirked, grabbed me and began to rifle through my backpack without a single grunt of explanation. "What're you-?" I managed to ask before she whirled me round, an accusatory glare on her face.

It took a chorus of charades for me to realise she wanted her plants that she'd kept in my backpack for so long.

"That gym in Fallarbor," I told her. "They took almost everything from my backpack. I'm guessing all your poisons were taken too."

She glared at me for a long moment. Finally she sighed and glanced around, taking long, creepy steps through the forest around us. She moved like a demonic creature from an old horror film; stalking through the night for her prey. Except this time it was day and she was hunting plants.

She took off suddenly, passing through the overgrown plants as if they weren't even there. I cursed and called out after her, following after her as quickly as I could.

All I found, however, was a little area of forest that looked like it had never been disturbed.

"_Great,"_ I muttered as I spun around on the spot. My pokémon had been out and evolved for less than five minutes and I'd managed to lose her completely. I swore at the heavens and wondered why my luck was so poor. It shouldn't have been possible to lose a white-haired pokémon in the middle of a _very_ green forest.

When I finally found the missing shiftry, relief managed to flood completely through me.

"Hey Lacey," I growled as I stepped up behind the pokémon. "Don't go doing that again. Seriously, at least-"

The pokémon turned round and revealed that it wasn't Lacey.

Unless she'd suddenly managed to lose an eye and have it scar over within a few minutes.

"Oh," I gasped as I began backing away quickly. The shiftry looked pissed. Very pissed. I didn't want to get in its way anymore. "Well, uh, wrong pokémon. I'll be going now."

When two more shiftry appeared around me, I was fairly certain my nerves packed their bags and fled.

When I was surrounded, I was certain I was screwed.

* * *

I cursed once more as I found my route through the forest blocked. The many shiftrys had all somehow managed to not only throw me far away from their nest, but also managed to hide from me.

I wouldn't have minded, if my own pokémon weren't with them.

I growled and punched a tree in frustration. Pain blossomed up my fist and arm, cooling my anger for only a second.

_[Is harming you going to allow us to find the dark woodlander?]_ Alistair probed, his tone slightly sarcastic. _[If that is the case, perhaps I could be of assistance, sir?]_

I rolled my eyes in his direction. "Thanks for the offer; I'll keep it in mind. In the meantime, we've got to somehow sneak past a load of creatures native to the forest. You couldn't find out where Lacey had disappeared nor why she'd done so, may I remind you."

_[I have told you once before sir, my psychic abilities are lacking,]_ said my gallade as he analysed marking in a tree. He seemed to look over them once and decided they weren't worthwhile before he turned back to me. _[Searching for her is even harder in a location full of creatures of darkness. It is like something is making my senses hazy and foggy. Finding one specific creature is hard enough within this haze, searching for something that is a part of the haze is impossible, sir.]_

My hands gripped the sides of my head at his words, the pain reduced to only a dull throb. I guessed that meant it wouldn't be long before I didn't feel any pain when my pokémon were talking telepathically.

"You could have just said you can't do it, you know?" I muttered, throwing him an angry glance.

[_I am aware of that. But I am also aware that your understanding of most pokémon-related subjects is rather dire. I am only trying to educate you, sir.]_

I bit back a retort at that, forcing myself to stop thinking at the same time. I couldn't fault his logic, as much as I didn't want to admit it.

"Right," I sighed and glanced around our surroundings. "We've tried going in that way, and that," I said, pointing at two o'clock and ten o'clock. "We've been blocked off both times. We also got kicked out somewhere around five o'clock. I'm guessing that means the shiftry have some sort of guard border positioned in a large circle."

_[Many clans do such,]_ Alistair told me. He spun full-circle, his cape of skin fluttering behind him. _[It stands to reason that their colony would be somewhere very nearby. Though the unusual activity is that they have formed a circle around _us_, sir. Most colonies do so around the individuals they wish to protect. I am aware pokémon of darkness do this… though they also circle their prey and attack it all at once.]_

I felt myself gulp at that. "R-right," I said shakily. "So either they want to eat us, or they're trying to protect us. Lacey's in there with there… which doesn't sway the argument either way," I admitted with a sigh.

_[They know something about you though,]_ Alistair mentioned. My head snapped round to the pokémon, watching the way his clawed fingers grabbed at either of his elbows. _[It is a complicated form of telepathy; I have taken your memories and attempted to understand what they were saying.]_

I blinked. "You can do that?" I asked, awed.

_[It is taking a large amount of energy to perform such a task,]_ he answered me. _[But yes, I can. Though, it is not without its problems. I can only liken it to you trying to repeat a foreign language you heard and do not understand to a translator. Mistakes are going to be bad in translation.]_

"So?" I probed. "What were they saying about me?"

He shrugged. _[I cannot translate it perfectly. What I do understand is this; they are asking the dark woodlander we know why she follows you… one who, 'feels strange to each sense', as they describe it.]_

"Time travel must do something funny to you," I mumbled. "You think I'm not quite right and so do they apparently. Shiftry are meant to be able to read minds; maybe that's why they know something about it.

"It also makes trying to get past them all the harder." I squatted and began poking at the ground with a stick, slowly trying to form an idea. "What about Erra? Is there much you can understand when she's around? Her thoughts, what are they like?"

Alistair tapped a claw to his elbow. I knew full well he'd been able to read Erra's mind; I'd let her out on our way to Fortree and Alistair had visibly recoiled from the magnemite. At first I thought it was because of the way she tried to tear into a tropius, but I realised when he was anywhere near her, he seemed almost… freaked out, for want of a better term.

_[Her mind is addled,]_ the gallade told me. _[Her thoughts are buried under a rush of pure instinct. It is like she is seeing red, according to human phrasing. Whatever she was injected with, it is making her produce adrenaline all the time. It gives her a boost in power, but it means that she cannot identify friend or foe, save for those she knows through long-term memory.]_

I nodded. "I got most of that from the people at the hospital anyway. They said it should wear off soon. But if her thoughts are clouded…" I tapped a finger against my chin and thought about it. Slowly a plan began to form in my mind.

"Erra can distract them. If she flies in, all guns blazing, they'll be put off by the noise, the attacks and her thoughts, won't they?" I asked rhetorically, already sketching out a few basic diagrams into the dirt. "While she does that, we can use her as cover to rush past. I can recall her if things get too dicey and use you and Scar to help me if more shiftrys come at us. Xander and Loki can be kept as back up."

I was certain that Alistair rolled his eyes behind me. _ [A question, sir. Would it not be better if the lombre and the dark ghost were used as a diversion too?]_

I shook my head. "Scar and you both have the advantage. Scar with his fire, you with your martial arts prowess. Xander and Loki don't have as much of an advantage and they're also weaker than you. I'm only using Erra because she's so doped up at the moment."

_[Very well, sir.]_ I felt the gallade nod behind me. _[I will follow your plan. Do understand though, that I will not kill any of the dark woodlanders unless the sitation calls explicitly for it. I cannot kill a creature that is just trying to defend its home.]_

That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. It was what I had expected though.

"Fine," I said reluctantly. I took a breath. "In three, alright? Three… two… on-oh shit."

Suddenly there were a number of shiftry all stood before us, eyes gleaming a murderous yellow in the sun.

"I know this is going to sound bad," I mumbled, "but I can't actually tell if any of them is Lacey or not."

I saw Alistair give me a side-long glance. _[You cannot tell your own allies by sight alone?]_

My arms flailed sideways as much as they could without antagonising the shiftry surrounding us. "We're surrounded by a group of pokémon that all look the same, _alright?_ It's not my fault all pokémon look alike."

I felt another glare on the back of my head.

_[Racist.]_

Before I could come up with a smart comment, one of the shiftry stepped forwards and gestured for us to follow it. I remained in place and raised an eyebrow.

_[They want us to follow-]_

"I got that much," I muttered to my pokémon. "What I don't understand is _why_ they want us to follow them."

The lead shifty grunted at us, gesturing wildly with its arms. Each movement made the leaves attached to his arms whip little, light breezes of cool air over us all.

_[Their leader wishes to speak with us, sir,]_ Alistair translated for me. [_Apparently our ally has requested aid from the leader of this colony.]_

I stood there and blinked in numb shock. "Wait… Lacey asked another pokémon for help? She didn't just run in, hacking and slashing until she got what she wanted?" The absurdity of it all made me laugh. I glanced up at my pokémon and managed to whisper, "It's not a trap, is it?"

He shrugged. _[I cannot read their minds, but as far as I can tell, their words are sincere, sir.]_

I grimaced and glanced between all of the shiftry, unable to tell the difference between any of them. "Alright," I said slowly. "We'll follow you. Take me to your leader."

I snorted a laugh at those words. Alistair just looked confused, at least until he caught my train of thought. Then he just looked like he wanted to slap me around the head.

I didn't like the fact that we were being lead into the middle of hostile territory, much less the idea that we were surrounded on all sides.

But Lacey was with them and as far as I was aware, she was trying to help me.

I wasn't sure if that was scarier than walking into a clan of shiftry.

I knew it wasn't when I caught sight of their leader. It didn't look anything like an actual shiftry. Almost all the white hair had vanished, all that was left were a few sparse strands here and there. Its body was a dark brown and knotted and twisted, like a tree made from nightmares. Its eyes were no longer yellow, now a dull orange and its face was twisted into something that looked permanently damaged by hate.

There was one thing that defined it as a leader; it stood taller than any of the other shiftry, carrying itself with more dignity than any of them.

It also had a stick. A big stick. Like a staff. It had a skull on the top – I wasn't sure what it once belonged to.

By its side was another shiftry. I squinted at the pokémon as it smirked at me. It was the only thing that let me know it was Lacey. I was certain no other pokémon could make a smirk look so reassuringly dangerous.

The leader grunted something slowly, it's voice sounding a lot like nails being scraped down a window.

_[The leader welcomes you here, sir,]_ Alistair translated for me.

I nodded. "Well, uh, thanks for having me, I guess. And you know, not cutting me open and decorating your forest with my entrails. What do you want me for anyway? I mean, why would Lacey be seeking you for help?"

I had to wait for it to finish speaking and Alistair's translation. I was just a little bit shocked by what I heard.

It turned out that the elderly shiftry before me was the same one that had been tutored by the previous poison gym leader's father.

I'd always thought that would have been Lacey.

Instead it turned out that she used to be this elder shiftry's apprentice. Their entire clan had lived in the Petalburg Woods once, until they met a pokémon that warned them they needed to move away. Lacey decided to stay and found the little cabin I discovered her in. Apparently she'd learnt all she could have from her shiftry-teacher and moved on to murdering the owner of the cabin, then poisoning any travellers that came by, occasionally learning from the poisonous pokémon of the forest.

I was silent for a good while. What could I really say to everything I'd learnt? 'Teach me to poison things'? It didn't seem like something that would go down well.

"What pokémon?" I found myself asking. "You said you were convinced to leave the forest by a pokémon. I'm guessing it had to be pretty strong, to force a clan of shiftry out of the forest. Especially if my guess is correct and you've got a few nuzleaf and seedot hiding in the trees and forests around us."

The elder shiftry's expression changed, almost like it was raising an eyebrow. I saw Lacey smirk to herself, seemingly pleased with what I'd said.

Then her face fell as the elder gave a one-grunt answer.

And my heart stopped when Alistair gave the translation.

_Celebi._

That damned stupid little time pixie had organised these pokémon to leave the forests! It had managed to make Lacey fall into a perfect place for me to find her!

All at once I remembered that Lacey seemed to know a lot more than she let on. My brain couldn't process it. Had Lacey been in cahoots with the celebi, even before I'd arrived in this world?

_[The Celebi warned us,]_ Alistair translated word-for-word. _[It told us that dark times were ahead.]_ The elder raised a leafy hand.

And the shiftry surrounding us closed in.

Alistair seemed to hesitate in translating the rest. _[We do not trust The Celebi. A pokémon that cannot die is not a friend to those that can. If The Celebi asks us for aid, we shall not help._

_[We shall eliminate that which The Celebi seeks to protect.]_

My heart stopped as Lacey's smirk grew.

She'd sold me out! The whole time she'd been travelling with us, it was nothing more than a ruse, all to lead us back to these shiftry, just to kill me! Just because these pokémon wanted to piss off a legendary!

I glared at Lacey. She just smirked back at me and placed a hand on the elder shiftry's shoulder.

She squeezed the pokémon's shoulder.

And she _winked_ at me.

My heart stopped again.

Then Lacey snapped the elder's neck.

There was silence in the entire clearing.

And suddenly, war broke out.

A dozen war cries echoed all around me, shiftry screaming for their fallen master. They all ignored me and Alistair, heading straight for Lacey, seeking vengeance.

She smirked and grabbed the fallen elder's staff, smashing it _through_ the skull of a shiftry that got too close to her. One leapt up behind her and grabbed a fistful of hair from her back. She hissed and kicked it away, a violent crunch sounding on impact. She ducked below an assault of sticks and plucked a berry from the floor, concealed by her foot and smeared it over the bottom of her staff.

She cackled and slashed the shiftry nearest to her. Bright red blood blossomed down its chest as the staff tore open a wound. The pokémon snarled at Lacey, swearing vengeance.

Then suddenly, its face contorted in pain and it fell to the floor, convulsing and dying.

I didn't need to guess what had happened. Lacey had poisoned the end of the staff with something that killed once it was in the bloodstream.

Still, poison or no, she would be overrun by shiftry soon.

Scar's poké ball exploded in light before I'd even consciously thought about it. He didn't even need to be told what to do before he set a shiftry ablaze, turning white hair into a brilliant burning orange in under a second.

"Watch out for Lacey!" I shouted after him. "She's the one with the staff!"

Scar spared me a glance as if to say _'No shit'_ before he leapt at a nuzleaf, tearing into the grassy pokémon.

I felt a breeze grace my head and ducked. A fist punched through the air where my head had been, the shiftry it belonged to looking pissed. I twisted on the floor, kicking it in the shin as I leapt away. The pokémon hissed, gripping its injured shin and undoubtedly swearing deadly payback.

Then its head fell off its shoulders.

_[Are you okay, sir?]_ my gallade asked as he calmly wiped blood from his arm-blades. I'd barely managed to swallow and nod before he somersaulted backwards, bringing his blades down and cleaving a shiftry's arms from its body.

I blinked and saw my gallade smirk at me.

_[I said I do not wish to kill them. Rendering them unable to cause damage is a far better solution sir, so long as they can survive afterwards.]_

I was slightly amazed that he managed to relate such a message to me even as he kicked a nuzleaf square in the chest and sliced the nose off another. Meanwhile I was still scrambling on the floor, trying to find my weapon and avoiding any shadows that came near me.

I growled to myself. Out of practice. It wasn't good.

I grabbed the emergency cord on my bandolier and pulled it down hard. Three poké balls exploded as one, deafening and blinding us all for a moment.

Unlike Scar, Xander and Loki didn't leap into battle instantly. Xander took a moment to glance around, analysing what was going on, whilst Loki rubbed his hands together gleefully and bounced excitedly on the spot.

Erra took a second before she latched onto a nuzleaf's nose and pumped it full of electricity. I could hear Erra buzzing gleefully as the pokémon underneath her shrieked in pain. Then suddenly Erra dashed forwards, mandibles clicking as she plunged into the pokémon's face, tearing away one of its eyes with a horrible wailing protest from its victim.

The sight made me flinch and turn away. Xander soaked a shiftry that got too close to him as Loki scampered behind the same pokémon. The sableye growled and leapt up the shiftry, using its back hair as footholds. Once atop the creature, Loki reached down and pulled its nose upwards, slashing wildly at the pokémon's face as he did so.

I little bit of pride flooded through me that Loki had remembered what I'd told him; attack the nose on shiftry and nuzleaf.

A nuzleaf leapt at me and I blasted a round into its chest.

I didn't have the time or patience to disable them by pinching noses.

I don't know how much time passed before everything seemed to retreat back into the forests. Numerous dead bodies lay around us, bleeding into the ground and covering the air in a foul stench.

"We should probably just leave these for scavengers," I said as I idly counted my remaining ammunition. I stopped and glanced up at Lacey, watching her wade through the corpses of her once-brethren. "Unless, you know, there's something that you want to do with them?"

She glanced my way and shrugged.

"Right then," I said and recalled most of my pokémon. I left out Alistair and Lacey, wanting to talk to the latter and be able to understand it through the former. "Don't you want your stick?" I asked Lacey.

The shiftry glanced at the strange staff in her hands, shrugged and then snapped it in two.

Obviously not, I gathered.

"Ri-ight," I sighed. "We should leave. Before something bigger smells all this blood and tries to eat us."

* * *

We walked in silence until we found a small stream to clean off most of the blood. That proved harder than we first thought, seeing as carvanha seemed to populate the water. Once they caught the scent of blood, they suddenly began splashing out of the water, gaping maws all trying to tear pieces of bloody flesh from our bodies.

"So," I said once we were clean and clear of carvanha. "What was all that about?"

Lacey glared at me and shrugged.

"Don't try pulling anything like that on me!" I hissed at her. "You could have led us into a trap back there. All those shiftry – ones _you_ knew seemed to think you were delivering us for some sort of _feast_!"

I heard Alistair make a sound behind me, almost like he was clearing his throat. _[As amusing as the analogy may be to you, sir, I do believe comparing our butchering of the tribe to a meal gone wrong is in rather bad tastes.]_

"Right," I said with a roll of my eyes. "So are you going to talk or what?" I growled at Lacey. "You know something about the celebi, don't you? You've known all along exactly what's going on and you're refusing to give me any sort of explanation! Excuse me if this is selfish, but you're holding out on information that stupid imp has about _me!_ What is it? Am I gonna die horrifically, huh? Am I gonna murder The Rayquaza or something?"

Lacey shook her head and uttered one single syllable.

I didn't need Alistair to translate that for me.

_Don't._

"'Don't' what Lacey? Don't make you tell me what I have a right to know?" I cursed and kicked at the ground, uprooting a clump of grass and sending an oddish scurrying away. "What if that had gone wrong, huh? What if all those shiftry had just killed us, rather than delivering us to the leader? What if they'd managed to reduce us to chunks instead of us being able to fight our way out?"

_[I had confidence in you.]_

I didn't know what was freakier – Lacey having confidence in me, or hearing it from Alistair. I shuddered and rubbed my arms furiously, trying to rid myself of the goosebumps that flourished over my skin.

"That's not good enough," I muttered. "Keep secrets if you want to, _fine_. But at least tell me what that was all about back there! Why did those shiftry seem to know about that stupid celebi?"

Lacey shut her eyes, turned away from me and mumbled barely audible sounds. It was still enough for Alistair to translate though.

_[The Celebi often appears in forests. They are its domain – where it is safest. Nearly a year ago, It appeared in our forests. This was not unusual. What was strange was that it sought our tribe out. We are creatures of darkness – we are immune to all but the most powerful psychic techniques._

_[That is why it sought us. We are among the few denizens of the forest that are dark. The Celebi thought that the bonds of the forest were enough to make us believe It._

_[We are not so stupid.]_

She glanced back at me, her eyes narrowed and for once, her lip twisted in… uncertainty?

_[The Celebi are immortal creatures – blessed with time travel and charged with maintaining the plan given to them by the Old God.]_

"'Old God'?" I repeated, confused. I'd never heard of such a term before. I'd always thought that different pokémon worshiped the different legends, much like humans did.

I realised how stupid that assumption was in that moment. Pokémon undoubtedly knew exactly what the legends were and whether or not they deserved to be worshipped. Just because humans revered The Groudon or whatever didn't mean pokémon did too.

_[The first God,]_ Alistair whispered into my mind. I whipped round on him, alarmed that Lacey hadn't said a thing. It was coming purely from here.

_[The God that created us all, then withdrew from the world when boredom set in.]_ I saw him give a quick glance to Lacey and an almost imperceptible nod. _[That is all we shall say on such a topic. We have our Gods, as you humans have yours. Our God created pokémon, sir, to inform a human in detail is akin to blasphemy.]_

I nodded slowly, not fully convinced. "Right," I said hesitantly. "So… about the celebi then Lacey?"

She nodded and begun talking again, Alistair translating once more.

_[All pokémon know of The Celebi and that they cannot only see the future, but also live in it. They create many plans in order to ensure the future remains on course, whilst also going back in time to make small changes, all in order to make sure the world remains in balance._

_[The last time They interfered was in Sinnoh. They tasked various different pokémon with small, meaningless things.]_

I blinked. "How 'meaningless' are we talking about?"

She shrugged. [_Moving your nest three feet to the left. Hunting an hour later than you normally would. Simple, little things like that. They spread these small tasks around Sinnoh in order to ensure their future would remain the same._

_[The Dialga and The Palkia were to appear on The Summit of Sinnoh. The Celebi wished this to happen. However, their small interferences caused The Giratina to appear, enraged and seeking vengeance. It sucked a considerable amount of pokémon and people alike into The Anti-World._

_[We later found out that The Celebi knew all along this could happen. Their actions have larger consequences than we think. All to make sure something happens ten, twenty, even a hundred years ahead. The future does not matter if we are not here to witness it, or even to create life to live in it.]_

So the celebi were manipulative bastards. I laughed to myself. I'd figured that much out already. One thing bugged me though.

"But, I've heard about everything that happened in Sinnoh," I pointed out. "All the reports say that it was some kid who rose to be a Champion that managed to stop it all from happening."

Both of my pokémon started laughing at that and I felt like I'd said something stupid.

_[A human cannot take on The Giratina, sir," _Alistair informed me. _[No matter how powerful he may be, no matter how many strong pokémon he may have, The Giratina is the ruler of The World of Distortion. It is, in layman's terms, a God, sir.]_

"So what happened then?" I asked.

Lacey shrugged. [_It's likely that the child was sucked into The Anti-World with many others. He was likely the only survivor – the only person to emerge unscathed. Afterwards, The Giratina was quelled, most likely because He annihilated the threat He saw. Doubtless, the child claimed he had bested The Giratina.]_

I managed a small laugh. "I'd probably do the same thing."

Lacey nodded. [_Precisely. The Celebi alter things in the present for their own goals. We never know whether it is for the best, or whether it is for their own amusement. When The Celebi visited us, it told us to be on the lookout for a trainer… from the future.]_

"Me," I said needlessly.

The shiftry nodded again. _[Exactly. The Celebi told us we were to protect you whilst you journeyed through the forest – to ensure you emerged unharmed. It was the most detailed thing The Celebi had ever requested – we had expected it to ask us to sleep for an extra hour on a certain day. The Elder, who you saw before, was suspicious, so he read The Celebi's mind._

_[The Celebi may be able to travel time, but it is a psychic. My species are dark-hearted and able to read minds – psychics are unable to tell when we poke around in their brains. They become arrogant, thinking us stupid and often leave themselves exposed._

_[The Elder found out everything I have told you and after The Celebi left, he relayed such information to me, as I was his apprentice – I was to take charge of the clan after him. This is how I know all this.]_

Lacey stopped talking a moment and stared off in the direction of her former clan. _[The Elder decided that we should not follow The Celebi's plan. We knew that much always went wrong whenever The Celebi planned something – we did not want to be a link in the chain that caused another catastrophe. The Celebi told us that dark times were ahead, but we did not believe such tales. The Elder decided to move our clan elsewhere – he did not wish to antagonise the Powerful Ones, as has happened in Hoenn before.]_

I wanted to ask what she was talking about. My best guess was something to do with the stories of how The Rayquaza had appeared and stopped The Kyogre and The Groudon from fighting. I gathered that something there had been changed through the time-pixie's interference.

_[I remained though,]_ Alistair translated for me as Lacey began to speak again. _[I do not believe The Celebi either. I think that something bad will happen. But… I am not here to stop such a thing. I only wish to see what happens – to understand how far the chain goes. If we understand that, we can stop The Celebi from causing more harm to the world.]_

I found myself speechless for a moment. Slowly the ability returned to me. "So… if you don't want to change the world, or anything like that… why do you help me?"

She shrugged. _[A part of me is curious to see if you will be successful or not. Another part of me does so simply to keep up the pretence that you are in charge. However, I do respect you… to a degree. I doubt many other humans would be able to bluff so well about poké balls being able to kill the creature inside.]_

She winked as I chuckled nervously. "So, uh, you figured that out, then?"

She smirked. _[It was not hard. You forget that you also have other pokémon and have encountered other trainers. It is not difficult for me to talk to them and get a clear answer._

_[Regardless, in answer to your question; I led you towards my former clan to help you understand. You have been worrying about whether or not you can do what you claim you are tasked to accomplish. I may be helping the world reach ruin by doing so… but you needed to understand what you are capable of. With me missing, you managed to create a plan to find me. You are able to create and execute plans, despite thinking you could not. Now you know such a thing, stop being such a moany bastard and actually do something.]_

I flinched then burst into laughter at her words. "Right," I said. "No more moaning about anything. I'll shut up and get on with my task."

_[Good._ Lacey smirked once more, then shook her head and glared into the forests. _[Now, out of my way. All this conversation has left me with the urge to do violence.]_

"R-right," I said and sidestepped out of her way. She nodded and brushed past Alistair and I, murderous intent palpable.

As she left, Alistair tapped me on the shoulder. _[It is not right, sir, to let her run off and cut down innocent victims. There should be a duel, or at least reason behind such brutalities.]_

I just shrugged. "Maybe, but Lacey's… Lacey. You're not going to be able to change her, believe me, I've tried. It's best to just let her be who she is, just like how you remain by your code of honour. Take that away… and you wouldn't be you, would you?"

The gallade seemed to consider my words. _[I suppose not,]_ he finally said.

"There you go then." I nodded at him and stared after my murderous pokémon. She'd managed to show me that regardless of how much I'd changed, I was still a soldier at heart.

In a perverse way, she'd actually been nice to me.

All in order to see whether or not something bad would happen to the world.

I didn't think much more of it at the time, at least not until a few days later.

That was when all the poké balls stopped working.


	42. Ties

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Ties**

* * *

_Be careful what you wear to bed at night – you never know who you'll meet in your dreams _~ Anon

**-O-O-O-**

"_It's a small world. Everything may indeed be connected, but that doesn't freak us out any less when we realise it to be true. It still freaks me out that no matter where I travel to, with anyone I meet there's always a link back to someone I know. It's a big universe? Maybe. I'd just like to finally travel somewhere and not feel like I'm being suffocated by these invisible bonds that tie us all together."_

- Skylar Harris, pilot and Mistralton Town Gym Leader 3006 – 3021. (December 13th, 3010)

**-O-O-O-**

_/"I really don't like this at all."_

_My stomach drops as I look down at the ground. I see it covered in a number of people and pokémon both; some are shambling aimlessly between each other, the rest are tearing each other apart with whatever natural advantages they have._

_The platform I'm standing on sways in the slight breeze. _

_My stomach plummets from my body._

_I grip the remaining support beam tighter and wonder just why I had to explore the building that was nearly falling down. _

_Well, aside from trying to get a better sniping position and avoiding most of the creatures down below._

_But I was careless as I walked across the top. Five stories of building crumbled around me. I'm left now on the support beams that made it up, standing at the very top, wondering just how the hell I can make it out of this alive._

_I glance at my hand and see it's turning ever paler the harder I grip. The fingerless gloves are falling apart and there's a little stump where my ring finger should be._

_The supports moan in protest as creatures down below begin attacking the building. It's all I can do to keep my guts from running away right now._

_My free hand is shaking as I slowly reach into my holster and pull out my gun. I've never been afraid of heights, but I'm starting to be terrified of this one._

_I try and focus as I point the gun at some of the creatures below. It's only a handgun; I know I'd be unlikely to hit anything from such a distance. I know it won't scare them off either – the sound will just draw more of them to me._

"_Fuck," I whisper with a shake of my head. I consider eating the gun and biting the bullet, literally and figuratively._

-"Iron Island will be free of everything, you'll see. We'll be able to set up a new camp there!"-

_I remember the words like they're scriptures from the devil._

_Given my current predicament, they might as well be._

_I should have known not to go anywhere near there. Closed off, access only by sea… it meant one of two things. Either it was going to be the closest to a safe haven we were likely to find in Sinnoh, or it would be a death trap._

_Why did I follow her into the death trap?_

_A glint of light shines from my free hand and blinds me for a second._

Oh right,_ I think stupidly, _that.

_A worthless trinket these days; it has no actual value. The customs and meanings it holds have long since been abandoned in this world, yet somehow she convinced me we should exchange them._

_I realise that I'm a bit of a moron when it comes to her._

_I understand I'm a bit of a moron in general when I realise I'm teetering above death, contemplating little strips of metal._

"_Ah… balls," I mutter and glance around. There's nothing but torn up tarmac, rocks and the remains of streets down below. A few buildings line the streets, each showing signs of damage. Windows are broken and shattered, some houses look like they're toppling and I'm fairly certain there's a graveller living in one of those houses, eating everything stupid enough to go inside._

_The streets are dead._

_It smells like they're lined with them too._

_There's a large hillside just behind the houses on the opposite side of the street to me. I can see it leads into the forests._

_My mind begins to wander, highlighting possibilities that I shouldn't be considering right now._

_I shove them out of my head – quite literally – with my free hand. I need to focus. _

_I can see spearow circling above me. There's one or two vultures from Unova up there too, fighting with the spearow for rights to the feast below._

_I consider shooting one of them, just so they'd drop into a frenzy._

_The structure wobbles again and I groan for the umpteempth time, gripping ever tighter to the sole metal pole that stops me from falling to my doom._

_I hear fire behind me._

_I feel the air heat up._

_My groan becomes a shriek as fire blasts past my ear from behind._

_I turn as much as I can without unbalancing myself and find a mawile watching me from the building behind. Its beady little eyes glare at me as the creature sizes me up – it wants me for dinner._

"_Just what I need," I grunt and turn back to glance at the street. I can't shoot the mawile; its skin is too tough for that. I just need to hope it grows bored with me and tries to find something a little closer to eat._

_Down below more things are losing interest in each other, attacking the building again and again. I can see cracks beginning to race up the side and know it won't be long before I don't have anywhere to stand on._

_I consider shooting something in the distance. If it keels over, it might attract some of the things down below. If nothing else, the sound might._

_I grip my gun again, pull myself in tighter in the hope the mawile won't be able to flambé me and line up the shot._

"_Hey!"_

_The shout nearly scares me into falling from the building. I glance across the street and see someone standing atop the hillside, above the buildings and near the forest. He's wearing what looks like all blue, with some weird, funky hat. By his side is a little yellow rat and I can see the sparks discharging from it, even at such a distance._

"_You alright?" he screams at me._

"_Do I look it?" I shout back, aware that now everything's interest has turned towards us. It seems to be splitting everything down below into two groups; some are still coming for me, others for the maniac who decided to start shouting in the first place._

_I know I probably shouldn't have shouted back either. My training didn't go to waste. But I'm not about to pass up an opportunity for help._

_I think I see the man grin. "Get ready!" he shouts. "When you get the chance, climb up that drainpipe there!" He points to the directly below him with the old, black creaky drainpipe running up the side. "Get on top of the house and I'll feed you down a rope!"_

_I nod quickly and grab a rope from my own pack. I glance behind me, see the mawile has grown bored of me and found something in its building to eat and I smile to myself._

_I breathe a sigh of relief and tie the rope one-handed around the support beam I'm still gripping. The irony of me using an escape rope to head towards danger isn't lost on me. If only they worked like in the shows; loop it around yourself and you magically warp out of a cave._

_In fact, I don't know why they're called 'escape ropes' anyway. They're just normal ropes._

_Stupid third-millenia marketing ploys._

_Gods I'm getting old._

_I glance across at the mystery man and see him nod. I take a deep breath and swing myself onto my rope, too late for praying that it holds._

_It does and I feel relief flood through me. I manage to slide down the rope just as I hear something explode in the distance._

_There's the distant hum of electricity and I guess the guy's pikachu had something to do with it. Maybe some sort of electric-activated remote bomb…_

SHUT UP!

_My brain screams and makes me focus on sliding down the rope. I glance down and see some of the things have moved away. A few are still around, waiting for me to drop into their greedy mouths._

_I decide I'm not going to let them have the chance._

_I drop the last few feet from the rope and land on top of what I think was a wigglytuff. It shrieks as I kick it away, already running for my life._

_Someone lunges at me, arms outstretched and breath stinking of rotting meat._

_I snatch the metal pole from my back and smack him in the head with it. He goes down moaning as I run past his hopefully dying body._

_My heart is thundering as I run across the street. More of the things come at me._

_I smack another in the face and run past it._

_I hear footsteps behind me and drop to the floor quickly. Something bumps into me and falls over my body, rolling across the street in a flash of blue._

_I wonder what it is before more things come at me._

_The __**fast**__ things._

_I curse and snatch a poké ball from the belt across my chest. It explodes into brilliant white light as I scream for the creature inside to burn them all._

_Instantly my red fire-breathing lizard is at my side. Violent orange flames explode out of his mouth and roast the blue thing – I think it's a lucario – alive._

_The smell of burning, live flesh draws more things towards us. I don't even need to look at Scar as he twists around me, grabs my free arm and spins me around in a circle._

_I shut my eyes and pray the dizzy feeling goes away quickly. I hear numerous 'thunks' as my outstretched iron bar collides into bodies – I feel my arm bend backwards with the weight of every blow._

_There's another thunk and suddenly pain lances up my arm. I can't help but lose my grip on the weapon and shout curses after it, even as my pokémon stops spinning me._

_I manage to grab my footing even as the world spins around me. Scar growls what I know to be little violent curses as shadows surround us._

_I glance behind me._

_I see the stupid drainpipe!_

_We're here, I realise quickly. _

_I take a running leap towards the pipe and manage to shamble up it as quickly as I can. Scar growls from behind me as he smashes his tail though a woman's face. I snatch his poké ball from a pocket and recall him just as the things around him leap at him. They pass through iridescent red light and I exhale in relief before scampering as quickly as I can up the drainpipe._

_It seems like forever by the time I reach my mysterious saviour. He throws me a grin as I double over, grip my knees and pant for breath._

"_It's all the radio's fault," he tells me conversationally. "The channels that are still up are saying it's free of infection here. Course, people should know by now-"_

"_No such thing," I pant with a smile on my face. "Believe me, I know."_

_He glances at me sharply. "Then why'd you come here?" I hold up my hand towards him and hear him grunt an amused sound. "Ah. Ball and chain, huh? Still won't give up that last bit of hope?"_

_I manage a small laugh. "That last bit of hope's the only thing that's keeping me going too. That and the fact she has my braviary. Could have flown right over those hungry fuckers." I straighten out and wipe my forehead with my sleeve. "I owe ya one pal."_

"_Don't sweat it," he tells me with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I mean, we gotta look out for one another, right? Keeping the group alive is the main thing, isn't it?"_

_I manage a quick nod. "Something like that."_

_He smiles at me. "Then you'll understand that my group needs to eat."_

_I'm confused for just a second before pain explodes in my kidney. Warm liquid trickles out of my stomach just before I see the gun pressed against my head._

_I pour all the hatred and surprise I can into cursing him for eternity. "You-"_

_BANG!/_

* * *

"Holy-?" I screamed as I woke up, covered in a film of sweat. My heart threatened to explode out of my chest and a phantom stab wound burned at my kidney. I ran my hands over my chest just to make sure I was still intact before I collapsed against the floor and breathed out a long sigh.

"The fuck was that?" I wondered to myself. I remembered all of it so clearly and wondered just whether or not it had ever happened. In fact, I remembered most of it actually happening – save for the part about having a pokémon and the guy stabbing me in the stomach.

"That was a year ago," I whispered to myself. I frowned as I recalled little bits of it; our unit going towards one of the little islands just off of the ruins of Slateport. I remembered that I ended up stranded atop a building with a street of hungry, angry people and pokémon between me and my group.

For whatever reason my group had broken our usual belief of leaving the doomed behind and distracted everything long enough for me to catch up.

I figured it was because had only just turned sixteen.

But that was all the truth in that weird dream. The rest – the missing finger, me being about twice my age, getting stabbed – that was all impossible. Even having Scar was a lie, though there was some truth in it.

I groaned to myself and wondered just what was happening. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the inside of my brain and just decided to redecorate.

There was a low whistle to my left. I threw a glance and found Lacey staring at me in the dark, her yellow eyes glowing demonically in the black of the night.

"Any ideas?" I asked her; fully aware she could read my mind. Instead she just shrugged and pretended like she had no clue what I was talking about.

"Right," I grunted and pulled myself from my sleeping bag. Stupid freaky dreams. I rubbed at my head, dully recalling some similar pain to when Adryan's gardevoir had tried telepathy with me. I wondered whether or not there was a psychic about feasting on my dreams.

I glanced at Lacey and told myself that she wouldn't have let one get away with something like that.

In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if _she_ had somehow been eating them.

It still struck me as weird though. Most dreams I had would fade behind a fog within a few minutes and I'd forget them. This one stuck with me for ages.

Forever, even.

"Here," I grunted as I tossed Lacey my gun. She caught it instantly and looked at it in pure confusion for a second.

"I can't sleep," I told her as I packed everything away. "And I told you I'd teach you how to use that once you evolved. Yesterday you decided to run off and slaughter your old tribe, so I'm making good on my word now."

The shiftry held the gun awkwardly, seemingly trying to remember how to wield it properly. I resisted the urge to sigh and instead slung my bag over my shoulder. "Try not to shoot me with it," I jibed. "I've already been shot enough for a life time. Going out from a shiftry accidentally firing at me is embarrassing, more than anything."

She shot me a dark look and waved the gun menacingly at me. All it achieved was making me laugh.

"If you want to threaten to shoot me, at least make sure the barrel's pointed towards me and not _you_."

I managed to laugh a little instead of groaning. I knew without a doubt that teaching her again would take a while.

* * *

"Don't give me that look."

Xander glared at me from his spot on the floor, his froggy body half suspended in a small trickle of a stream.

"I didn't exactly plan to go in there and execute a colony of shifry." I squatted beside the pokémon in the stream and splashed him with a handful of water. "Lacey sort of led us in there; apparently it was all some sort of test to make sure I got my confidence in my planning skills."

He croaked and nudged me in the leg just lightly enough so that I didn't lose my balance.

"You can't take the moral high ground here, Xander; it was a kill or be-killed situation." I sighed and stood back up, splashing him with a little more water. "And anyway, I promised Lacey ages ago that I'd teach her how to use a gun. I'm just keeping good on my word. Be thankful that even though her wrists are stronger, she's just a poor shot." I managed a small laugh and scratched at my cheek. "Actually, I'm not certain that's something to be thankful for. Who knows what she'll hit instead of the target. Anyway, I'll keep you around a bit more often, if that's what you want. You just need to understand though that sometimes, killing something that's in the way is the only way to deal with a problem."

He croaked once more and purposely circled around me, meeting my eyes with a determined gaze.

"Fine," I relented, throwing my hands up into the air. "I'll try and work around a few problems – not like I've never tried to do anything like that before. But if I'm meant to stop the world going to hell, there's going to have to be a few deaths along the way."

Xander gave the closest to a shrug he could as he croaked a few syllables. I didn't need a translator for what he meant.

_No more than necessary._

I fought the urge to laugh at that. Who could really define who and what the necessary casualties were? Maybe the people that wanted to cause the future I'd seen, but other than that, there was no way to tell.

"Sure," I muttered as I walked away from him. "You point out who's necessary to kill. In the meantime, whilst you're still sat around deciding on who can and can't be killed, they're going to be after us. You're an idealist; they generally just end up getting people killed."

I received a blast of water to the back of the neck for that.

"Sadist." I spun and glared at him, only to fall into a small smile at his grin. Eventually I just shook my head and told him I'd need to recall him whilst I walked a bit more of the way to Fortree.

That was the plan.

But when I pressed the button on the poké ball, nothing happened.

"Okay…" I said, feeling my ears and cheeks begin to burn as I continued to hammer the button. "You're not going to evolve anytime soon, are you? You haven't stepped on a water stone or something?"

He gave me a look that very clearly said that wasn't the case.

"Fine, fine," I mumbled, waving away the glares of froggy-doom. "But something's wrong here. I remember getting the explanation on how these work back in my world and again from Jennifer. They run on some weird sort of battery that's solar powered, as well as taking power remotely from some central electrical server, or something to that effect. Apparently if one failed, there was always something back up."

If both failed, there was supposedly another failsafe in place – though the explanation for that was way over my head.

It boiled down to one thing; poké balls were designed to always be able to work. Whether for control, or to keep dangerous pokémon in confinement or some strange reason involving waging war with monsters locked in ping pong ball sized orbs, they were always meant to work.

That's why I was so confused and alarmed that Xander's poké ball was refusing to recall him.

"This is weird," I said as I plucked my pokédex from a pocket. I scanned the orb but it came up completely normal; apparently the ball was operating normally. There wasn't even a big trainer-based update on the pokédex - the last news feed that had been updated was that skarmory were being spotted more than normal around Lavaridge.

Seeing that did make me feel a slight pang of sadness about Sophie.

"There's nothing wrong with this, apparently," I said as I tossed the ball between my hands. "So why isn't it working?"

I wondered just whether or not all my other poké balls were acting up too.

That was then they exploded with enough force to knock me off my feet.

"Ow," I groaned as I spat dirt out of my mouth. "That wasn't nice."

I managed to sit up-

- only for a blast of electricity to nearly take my face off.

I yelped and dove at the floor just in time. I heard wild hissing and buzzing above me and knew instantly Erra was out and attacking something.

The shrieks afterwards let me know she was attacking Lacey.

"What?" I mumbled as I sat back up again, my world spinning and my chest hurting a little with every breath. "_All_ of you escaped your poké balls?" I wondered deliriously as my pokémon tried to stop Erra and Lacey fighting. "Just how did this happen?"

It took a blast of water to my face to shock me into reality.

Instantly I was on my feet and between my two warring pokémon, Alistair and Scar holding onto Lacey; an arm apiece and Loki snarling as he leant on Erra, pinning her to the floor as Xander stood between them, trying to play mediator.

"Alright, just what the hell is going on here?" I demanded of my pokémon.

_[There was… a blast… of energy, sir,]_ Alistair groaned as he attempted to wrestle Lacey away from slicing Erra apart. _[Then suddenly… we were out here, with the dark woodlander and… the addled electrical insect… were attempting to kill another… as you can see, sir!]_

"Right," I mumbled, stumped for a moment. "Okay, Lacey cut it out! She's high on who-knows-what and attacking randomly! You attacking her back isn't going to help!" I glared at her then squatted in front of my magnemite, trying to meet her eye. "Look, I know those people in Fallarbor injected you with who knows what, but I know you're still in there somewhere. So snap out of this!"

I had to jump away from the responding blast of electricity.

"Fuck this," I muttered to myself. "Guys, knock them both out."

Alistair obeyed instantly; he slammed an arm into Lacey's gut and doubled her over. As her head went down, his knee came up and smashed into her face, sending her flying backwards and truly out for the count.

Meanwhile Loki held onto Erra's wings trapping her and cursing as she shocked him with little bolts of electricity. It took Scar smacking the insect on her head to knock her out for the count, at which point me and most of my team took a sigh of relief.

"Glad that's over with," I said as I quickly checked my unconscious pokémon. I tried to recall them once more, only for nothing to happen, yet again. "Great," I moaned. "Now we'll have to carry around an unconscious shiftry. I shook my head, sighed and waved Scar over. "Check around the perimeter, make sure we're clear of any other pokémon. Xander, see if there's any source of water nearby – try to avoid any carvanha that might be lurking in the stream. Loki, get some firewood – and try not to bring back a nest of pidgey this time, okay? I don't care if you killed their mother, I don't have the time, patience or the general good-will to become a father."

The sableye gave a happy chortle to that. It meant that he could eat the babies as well this time, unlike last; where he brought them back and lost them to a hungry Scar.

"Alistair, you help me move Lacey," I said with a nod to the unconscious pokémon. "I reckon we can just carry Erra underarm. There's no way we're making it to the next town with these two unconscious and I want them to have this all sorted out, just in case this poké ball thing is permanent."

I heard Alistair make a small amused sound. _[And what if it is permanent, sir? It is not exactly a bad thing.]_

I raised an eyebrow and shook my head. "Have you not met any of the other pokémon on this team? Lacey kills for fun, Erra indiscriminately at the moment, Scar if he thinks they're a threat and Loki… well I'm not totally sure about him. He seems to collect pieces of dead pokémon for his own, child-like amusement and then still somehow manages to be intelligent enough to track animals or point out when something's following us."

_[I cannot give a definite answer for you there, sir,]_ Alistair hummed as he picked up Lacey, tested her weight and then just slung her over a shoulder as if she weighed nothing. _[He is a dark-minded creature and hidden to my psychic abilities. And I am a fighter, sir, I am able to lift and carry large weights. My species lose most of our psychic abilities in exchange for much greater physical abilities and attributes.]_

"Right," I said as I picked up Erra. I felt remarkably emasculated as I walked along beside my pokémon, carrying a tiny magnemite in comparison to his heavier load. I frowned, felt phantom pain in my kidneys again and tried my best to ignore it. "Say, Alistair-"

_[There is no pokémon able to create and alter dreams.]_

I flinched a little and spun my head to face him. He gave me a smirk back, shifted Lacey and lumbered on ahead.

_[Or to be more accurate, sir, there is a pokémon that all other pokémon know to hold such powers, but you humans have not discovered it yet. Your dreams are simply that sir, even if they do manage to leave you with basic psychic pains.]_

"Okay," I replied, still unconvinced as I pressed a hand into my side and pushed down, trying to counter-balance the pain. It did nothing and instead I just dropped to the floor, glanced around and blew out a long breath. "We should stop here," I said. "It's as good a place as any – the trees here are thin enough to not hold clusters of pokémon in and dense enough to keep fliers out. The others will be able to track our footprints or our scents here anyhow."

_[As you wish sir,]_ Alistair said as he gently placed Lacey down, leaning her against a tree. _[Memories can often become part of a dream sir, in unusual circumstances. Most often, it has to do with That Which Uxie Follows.]_

"'That Which Uxie Follows'?" I echoed, genuinely confused. "That sounds like the name for a bad band. Or a cult. Complete with stupid acronym; 'TWUF'."

I felt more than saw my gallade roll his eyes. _[I refer to it as such, sir, because it is another creature humans have not discovered. You know that Uxie can wipe memories when in danger, but you are wrong that it blessed everything with the ability to remember. That act belongs to another.]_

"So who does it belong to?" I asked as I set Erra down in a small patch of grass and begun to dig a small fire pit.

_[Try as you might, sir, I am not going to reveal such information to you. The last time humanity learnt of such a creature before they were meant to was in the case of the mew species.]_

"_The Mew_?" I asked him. "The one the Kantonese revere as a God?"

Alistair snorted a laugh. _[Mew are no god. They are akin to… Adam and Eve, from the texts some humans worship. I know of such stories because my previous trainer belonged to such an order.]_

"Having a hard time believing that," I muttered.

He shrugged. _[Be that as it may, the point remains; mew are a common ancestor, not a God. But as I was explaining; That Which Uxie Follows is responsible for controlling memories. It is able to see any memory from any person and is still in control of the ability of memorising information. However, whenever its attention wanders, so do people's memories. They may briefly forget things, think the same thought over and over, or even – if they are asleep and dreaming – have their memories merge with their fantasies, sir.]_

"If that's the case, this memory-weaver sounds a bit like it's suffering from memory problems itself, given how frequently those things happen."

Alistair shrugged once more. _[I cannot deny what may be true, sir.]_

I snorted a small laugh after attempting and failing to recall Erra. "Alright then, I won't ask anymore. Something tells me I'm not going to get much more out of you. Keep an eye out for Loki – it's his turn to collect firewood. He should know that – if he's come back without any, feel free to kick him into the nearest tree. I need to make a phone call, see if this whole poké ball issue is happening with everyone else."

I flipped through my phone as I wandered a little distance away from Alistair, wondering just who I could ring. I figured if it was happening with everyone, Chris would probably be busy going crazy trying to recall some of the pokémon that were usually left in their poké balls. I had no idea whether or not Mia and her pokémon were out of the hospital yet – if they weren't, I figured her first concern wouldn't be all her pokémon out and about with her.

I ended up dialling Adryan, figuring he was the only person I could bother with such a problem. I wasn't even sure if Erica had a pokémon and had never bothered to ask.

I forgot all about that train of thought and the poké ball problem when Ayd answered the phone with a very poor attempt of a deep voiced, "Yo."

"Not that cool then?" he asked once I finished laughing. "What's up then dude? Much going on?"

I blinked and stared at the phone as if he could see my blank look through it. "You're… kidding, right?"

"No," he said, sounding confused. "Is there something big that's happened that I should be aware of?"

_Loaded question_.

I realised I hadn't really spoken to him since before Fallarbor. If I had, it was probably nothing more than a simple, 'Hey, how're you?' that I'd completely forgotten about.

"Okay then, stupid question, but are your balls working?"

He burst out laughing instantly.

"I meant your _poké _balls!" I hissed at the phone, blushing furiously. I couldn't even blame him for laughing – I did walk right into that one.

"My balls are working perfectly fine thanks. Why, are you interested testing them out?"

I made a face at the phone. "Only in your dreams Adryan. But in all seriousness; your poké balls, are they working? Mine have all stopped – everyone got released at once and now I can't recall anyone."

He hummed in thought. "Maybe you've just somehow got defective poké balls. Though having six at once, all bought from different places? That's unlikely. I haven't seen my pokémon yet – I've been at work, so I've left them to themselves. Willow's been looking after the spares."

"You're working?" I asked. "Since when? Where abouts?"

He barked a laugh. "Twenty questions. I've only just started – about three weeks now. I'm working at- _holy shit!_ Ripper, stop trying to abduct Phos! Leif, for God's sake, I've told you about eating the trees within city limits!" He sighed and filled the phone with a static sound before cursing once more. "Sorry dude, I'm gonna have to go. Looks like your problem's my problem. Except Claire's trying to flying kick Irenui. Or ninja her way onto the top of a building. I never can tell with her."

"Good luck then," I said with a laugh.

At least it wasn't just me suffering with the problem of bad pokémon-containing technology. I flipped my phone in my hands, stuffed it back in a pocket and turned back to Alistair.

"This is happening elsewhere too," I told him. "We're not alone with this problem."

He nodded, though I still felt the little tingle in my head like he was about to speak. I frowned and tried to rub at my head to rid myself of the strange, almost itchy feeling.

I didn't know why either, but I was suddenly hungry. It was almost like something was making me think exclusively about eating, yet allowing all my other thoughts to carry on.

_[Your memories are imaginative.]_

I jumped at the sudden voice and glared around our little campsite. Alistair gave me a startled look I fanned by jumping around and searching for the mystery voice.

"Is there another psychic here?" I asked of my pokémon.

He took a step closer towards me, closed his eyes and remained deathly still for a moment.

_[Yes,]_ he finally answered. _[I am uncertain as to where, sir, but there is definitely another psychic creature here. Is there anything you could tell me about it? I am unable to discern what species it is?]_

I shrugged. "It sounded female. Kinda… I don't know. Not apathetic, but it sounds like one of those people that wouldn't care if you got hit by a car two seconds later." I gave a small nervous laugh and shrugged. "Dunno what else I can tell you though. I'm weirdly hungry – it's stopping me from thinking about much."

It was like a light bulb went on over his head. His arms snapped out to his sides and a guttural hiss jumped out of his throat as the faint psychic pain danced in my skull again.

_[Your tamed pet is astute,]_ the voice said.

Something moved towards us, appearing with nothing more than a shimmer of the air. It was far taller than me, with a long neck down which ran a purple mane, and the neck itself covered in the same yellow fur as its head and the front of its body. Little brown spots decorated its fur, with its hind legs and the back of its body patterned in the reverse. The most curious sight of all was its tail, which seemed to move and sway like a snake, complete with fangs and beady little eyes.

"A girafarig?" I whispered to myself. "Well, I guess that explains why I'm so hungry. I didn't think that second head was capable of telepathy though."

_[It's not,]_ the creature told me. _[It sends out instinctive commands whilst I speak. I am hungry, thus it thinks only of getting food.]_

"So is all this in aid of you trying to get a free meal?" I turned my head to Alistair and nodded back towards the strange girafarig. "So what do you think? It out to get us?"

_[I cannot tell. She does not seem to wish us harm.]_

The strange pokémon cantered forwards a little and stood high above me. _[Forgive me. I did not realise I do not conform to your opinion of psychics. Should I feast upon your entrails and make a necklace out of your kneecaps to appease your stereotype of my brethren?]_

I took a hesitant step away. "Er, no? That won't be necessary."

_[Good,_] she muttered.

Then a blue barrier sprung up around her.

I flinched away, alarmed and watched as suddenly a large red blur smacked straight into the barrier. It slid down with a violent hiss, bathed the barrier in flames and slashed wildly at it.

"Scar!" I barked as my mind caught up. He turned towards me, stopped his assault and cocked his head towards me curiously. "It's alright, it seems to be harmless. If it isn't, feel free to tear it apart."

He growled and gave a small nod, though still watched the girafarig with visible unease.

_[Pleasant,]_ the creature muttered with a flick of its ears. _[Allow me to be blunt; I seek you out because I require your aid. I do not wish to share details with you, though know that our goals are the same.]_

"Really?" I muttered. "You're trying to save the world whilst simultaneously attempting to bring down the stupid time-fairy that brought you here?"

It didn't miss a beat. _[Something like that.]_

"So how can I be sure that I can trust you?"

Its tail snapped in anger. Or just hunger.

_[How can I be sure I can trust you?]_

I felt myself smirk a little. "I think I like you."

_[How thrilling,]_ it muttered. _[I think I may honestly die of happiness right now.]_

"Well, I would try to capture you, but-"

_[What makes you certain that I wish to be treated as such?]_ it snarled at me. _[You humans are all similar; unable to deal with pokémon unless you have those control orbs. How you all manage to live with such fear is beyond me.]_

"Well how else do we deal with creatures that can be only a few inches tall yet are still able to kill us without much effort?" I said. "Make friends?"

_[If you were talented enough. Instead mostly all you humans seek to wage war. Luckily, war is something I expect from my quest. I will work together with you. But first, I wish to know if you're worthy of working with.]_

"Oh goodie," I muttered. "I'm being tested by a creature that I really couldn't give a rattatta's ass about. If I have to jump through hoops to prove myself to you, something tells me that we wouldn't get along if we did work together."

_[Even if we hate each other, we can still get our goals completed,] _it muttered, then vanished once more under a strange shimmer of the light.

"Why do I attract all the crazy pokémon? Do I give off a pheromone or something?" I sighed and just shook my head. "Whatever. I don't think I need an insane girafarig to add to our ranks. No other pokémon about then, I take it?"

Scar made a small noise and scratched at the ground once. One little clan of pokémon that didn't seem to be any trouble.

I wasn't going to believe that until I saw it.

With my luck with wild pokémon, who could blame me?

* * *

"Would you please _cut this shit out?"_

I swore once more as Lacey and Erra tried to attack each other. Or more Erra got caught in Lacey's hair and proceeded to fill her with as much electricity as she could.

"Do you think we could just let them fight it out or something?" I muttered to Xander. He croaked and shook his head at me. I just rolled my eyes and watched as Alistair tried to pry Erra from Lacey's hair, instead only managing to get himself attacked by the shiftry for knocking her out.

I rubbed my temples, growled as Loki slung dirt at the two warring pokémon and decided that enough was enough. "Xander, soak them both."

Both Lacey and Erra shrieked as they were flooded with ice-cold water. Red and yellow gazes turned to the lombre at once, enemies seemingly united against their common cause.

I stood in front of Xander, glared at both my female pokémon and decided it was time I took matters into my own hands. I grabbed Lacey's nose, yanked it down even as I pinched Erra's wings together and yanked her completely free of the shiftry.

"This ends now!" I barked as I held them away from each other. Lacey snarled and tried to smack my hands away, only for Scar to leap at her and snatch her arms away. "Lacey, I get that you're defending yourself. I can't blame you for that. But seriously, self-defence and trying to murder your _teammate _is something else!

"As for you Erra," I growled and held her in front of my face, watching as she squirmed and attempted to free herself. "There's one thing that confuses me: why the hell are you even continuing this charade? You've been fine since a little after we went to that colony of shiftry. I've just played along because you've suddenly got loads of confidence and you've been winning battles. But _seriously?_ Now it's just getting ridiculous."

I heard Alistair clear his throat behind me. _[Sir, are you sure about this? Her mind is still-]_

"I'm certain," I said. "Believe me, I know all lies – I do it more than enough anyway. I can tell when someone's lying – apparently when pokémon are too." Erra buzzed in my grip again and tried to flood me with electricity before I pinched down on her wings again, distracting her with pain.

"Besides, she was drugged. There's no drug that manages to last that long."

The magnemite made a noise that was more of a whine than a buzz.

"See?" I said with a pointed glare towards Alistair. "The pretence of being drugged gave her the confidence boost she needed. Without it… well, I can understand. Sometimes things seem easier when you're under the influence. Even if you're just pretending… well I guess there are a few different forms of placebos.

"But anyway, I'm gonna let you both go. I don't want either of you to make a move to attack the other, alright?" I waited until I got a little sound of confirmation from them both before letting them go.

They both moved away from me sharpishly, glaring murder at me the whole while.

At least it seemed like they weren't going to attack each other.

Then three seconds later, they went for each other again.

And me, being the stupid ass I am, thought they wouldn't attack each other if I was in the way.

I don't know what made me do it.

It was stupid.

And incredibly painful.

* * *

I groaned as my consciousness returned and managed to say something that failed in sounding anything like coherent speech. I felt little claws and nudges ease me into a sitting position and something hold my head steady, even as my back and neck protested.

My ear felt like it was on fire. All the sounds through it came in like there was a wall of water between it and the world. My kidney was threatening to murder me from the inside out again and I was fairly certain that my eyebrows seemed to be conducting electricity.

"What?" I mumbled, even though my tongue felt like it didn't belong to my mouth.

I felt a strange breeze against my neck before something landed atop my head and something strange smelling was placed under my nose.

"Eh?" I said with a wave of my hands. There was a grunt and the strange smelling thing was shoved under my nose again. I managed to crack open an eye and found Lacey looking back at me, her eyes holding a strange, foreign note of apology.

I smiled just a little. "So all it took was me jumping between your attacks, huh?" I laughed, felt my ribs protest in agony and stopped as quickly as I could. Every bit of me screamed for something to ease the pain. As much as I wanted to though, I knew there was nothing I had on me to take for it.

Or more, nothing that I could trust myself to take.

_[Medicine.]_

I whined and tried to slap away the pain that came with Alistair's telepathic voice. There was a strange sound, almost like an old television's volume being adjusted before his voice came in my head again, though only as loud as a whisper.

_[Lacey says it is made of enough painkillers to numb the pain they caused you, sir.]_

"Right," I said, grabbed the proffered flask and downed the drink in one. It tasted like mould and leeches. "So… where's everyone else?"

_[Scar, Xander and Loki are all searching for the mysterious girafarig. We saw it watching when you threw yourself in between the attacks – an honourable act, if I say so myself, sir.]_

I snorted. "Well obviously I've got a concussion. You've never used the names I've given anyone before. What gives?"

I saw him shrug a little. _[Names are a means of a bond. Using them with another means that you have a bond with them, whether it be good or bad. I did not use anyone's names before as I assumed you would try to have me off the team as quickly as possible. I did not wish to make any bonds that would be broken through your acts. Now I can see such a thing is not likely to happen, sir.]_

"You come up with some weird explanations, you know that?"

_[Yet they make sense. How many people do you know that use your name on a regular basis?]_

I could count them on one hand. "Okay, I get your point." I winced as I tried to move, gave up and rubbed my ear, only for the pain to make me recoil and stop. "Geez, this hurts that much it'd probably be less painful to just have it cut off. So have you two made up then?"

I saw Lacey look atop my head and exchange a look with the magnemite perched there. The shiftry then looked back at me, shrugged, pulled a face and analysed my injured ear carefully.

So they hadn't completely made up then. But at least they'd come to a truce. It didn't seem like they'd be attacking each other anytime soon.

Or at least, hopefully not with me in the way.

"So I get you two cooperating and Erra to finally have a little confidence without all that shit in her system and all I needed to do was get my ears burned and my ribs bruised." I groaned a little as I laughed and checked to make sure I still had all my limbs. "Well, at least I'm still all in one piece otherwise. Remind me; next time anything like that happens, I'm just going to let you, them or whoever just rip each other to shreds."

I heard a few growls and turned my head enough to see my remaining pokémon return. Loki instantly leapt at me, clueless and confused when I winced in pain as he leapt on me. He was almost like an inquisitive toddler as he kept poking me, trying to make sure I was okay. Then he poked me in the ribs, found the inhale of breath I took funny and seemed to think he could use my injured ribs like a xylophone. Thankfully Scar managed to knock him off me before any more damage could injure me.

_[I was wrong about you.]_

I turned my gaze and found the strange girafarig behind Xander. He glanced at me, nodded and made sure I was okay.

Then he bounced up and smashed his head into Lacey's face.

I blinked in surprise just as he cloaked himself in mist, vanished completely and reappeared behind me, holding Erra in his mouth and shaking her like a dog with a toy. He spat her back out at Lacey, growled at them both and sat in front of me like a watch hound, his throat inflating threateningly every time they came near me afterwards.

_[I thought you were a coward. I can see that you are,]_ the girafarig told me. It took a few steps closer towards me, glanced at Alistair and whinnied softly as it sat down before me.

The whole time the little second head was filling my brain with little messages. At least it wasn't making me hungry.

Instead it was making me considerably tired.

I blinked my suddenly heavy eyes at the creature, rubbed my eyelids and rolled my neck slowly. "Is there a point to this?" I muttered.

_[There is,]_ it told me. _[Despite being afraid, you still tried to stop your creatures from attacking each other. It is rare to see a human perform such a feat. Those that do are usually ignorant of the dangers it would pose.]_

"So by getting myself horribly injured was a way to pass your test?" I laughed.

It snorted. _[Hardly. Your actions were stupid. I simply appreciate that you are not afraid of personal harm. If you wish to truly take down a Celebi, you must not be afraid of personal injury.]_

"Ri-ight," I said slowly. "But-wait, _'a'_ celebi? I thought there was like one? You know, with the 'they's and 'them's being that weird thing of referring to things in the plural. Like when you don't know someone's gender, it's all plural, gender neutral terms."

_[No.]_ The girafarig's ears twitched and its tail wrapped itself around its back. _[There is more than one. Anymore I shall wait to reveal. Do you think I would reveal all information as you ask? I apologise that I am once more crushing your stereotypes of psychics. We don't all speak in rhymes and vague hints, revealing all our plans at once. Some of us aren't utter morons.]_

I barked a laugh and instantly regretted it. "Okay, stop making me laugh. It hurts. So you're proposing we work together?"

It nodded. _[I am. On the condition that you do not try to capture me. I shall travel with you as an ally, not a slave.]_

"They're not slaves."

_[Call them what you will,]_ it said harshly, _[pets or slaves, it is the same. No one traps their friends in little containers. All I ask is that when the time comes, you leave killing the Celebi we seek to me.]_

I tilted my head and stared at the psychic creature. "I thought celebi couldn't die though? That's what those shiftry said, isn't it?" I asked as I turned to Alistair.

He nodded even as the girafarig growled.

_[I never said _how_ I would kill it, did I? The creature deserves to suffer.]_

I recoiled just a little bit away from the girafarig. "Okay, now you're filling the whole scary-psychic stereotype. Remind me not to piss you off in the same way."

_[It will be impossible for you to anger me in the same way.]_ It stood up abruptly, paced in a small circle and gave off palpable waves of anger. _[Enough of such talk. If we are to join forces, you should know my name. I am Garmine Erine Mendus Indigo Nova Ilus.]_

"Urm… is there… a shorter version of that?"

I'm fairly certain she rolled her eyes at me. _[The first three names refer to me. The last three to the brain in my tail. Such is the way our species names ourselves. You may use the acronym for my name, if you wish. Call me Gemini.]_

I nodded, processed the name and groaned a little to myself. "Hooray for the imaginatively named girafarig."

_[Actually sir, most humans took the names for words relating to doubles from acronyms of girafarigs' names,] _Alistair informed me.

"Gee thanks," I deadpanned. "Is there any useless information you _don't_ seem to know?"

He shrugged. _[It's not my fault humans are morons in comparison to pokémon.]_

"Great," I muttered. "Two smart-ass psychics. I need a distraction from my life."

It seemed like an answer to my griping as my phone began ringing. I jumped at the sudden noise, glared at the screen until I was able to see clearly and found myself a little surprised at the caller.

"Hey Mia," I said groggily. "You alright?"

She laughed quickly. Hollowly. "Loaded question. But yeah, I suppose I'm fine."

I decided the wisest course of action was to avoid any potentially lethal topics of conversation. Fine was a danger word, after all.

"Your poké balls not working?" I guessed. "It seems to be happening a lot. I can't recall anything." Even as I said it I grabbed Xander's poké ball and tried to recall him again. It failed and he glared bloody murder at me for trying to stop him from defending me.

"That's not it," Mia told me. "Well, that is happening, but that's not why I rang you. You remember that I was a bit weird with you in Rustboro?"

I nodded superfluously. "Yeah, but I can't really blame you for that."

"I'm still sorry for it," she said. "I just… I found out something that day that really knocked me for six."

I felt worry punch me straight in the gut. "You're alright, aren't you? Was it those tests? Did you… did you well, catch something?"

There was a sigh. "In a manner of speaking. I just… I don't know what to do. I just needed to talk, just to try and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do."

The tone of her voice made me lean forwards subconsciously. "Why, what's wrong?"

I could hear her take a breath before she spoke. I knew it was going to be something heavy.

What she said still shocked me speechless though.

"I'm pregnant."


	43. The Downhill Slope

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Downhill Slope**

* * *

_Disaster is a natural part of my evolution. Toward tragedy and dissolution _~ Chuck Palahnuik

**-O-O-O-**

"_We climb the slopes that life give us in the hope that whatever lies at the top is worth the effort we put in. The problem is when we go downhill. For once you start rolling down that hill, it's hard to stop."_

- Marshall Harris, 29th Unova League Champion and Unova Elite Four member 3002 – 3020. (April 19th, 3004)

**-O-O-O-**

"I'm sorry, you're _what?"_

"Pregnant."

She sounded pretty fed up and angry. I couldn't very well blame her. My mind was all abuzz with various stupid questions, all clamouring for attention. The first and the one that wanted to be voiced the most was, _'why'_, but I was fairly certain that would only lead to pissing her off.

"Are you sure?" I asked carefully.

I could practically see the deadpan look she gave me. "Unless the past thirteen tests I've taken are all wrong…"

"Oh," I said. I honestly didn't know what else I could say in such a situation. "What… what are you gonna do?"

She sighed and the phone blared static at me. "I'm not certain. I mean, I always wanted kids, but I wanted to be married and everything before I even _considered_ children. Now, with this… I'm not sure. I mean, given how it was conceived, I don't want to keep it. I _can't_ keep it, I'm just not ready for it."

"So that's your answer there, isn't it?" I asked her. I heard the brief silence and gathered that was still somehow the wrong answer.

"You'd think," she told me. "But I can't help thinking: what if I never have kids after this? I mean, I've always dreamed of having them, but I want to make sure I've done something with myself first. I don't want to be one of these women that only ever becomes a housewife. Maybe become a champion, or something – I don't really have the patience to work as anything else, like a secretary or something. But… I just don't know."

She cursed the air blue for a good minute.

"You told me killing gets easier, right? That means if I get rid of this, it should be a little bit easier, shouldn't it?"

I shrugged and scratched at my head with my free hand. "Yeah, usually. But I mean, you're what, five weeks gone? That isn't really a person yet, is it?"

"It's what I keep telling myself," she said. "But, my brain's keep playing all these 'what if' scenarios. This is too big a decision to make on my own. I'd ring my parents to talk to them, but I mean, I can't tell them what happened. They'd freak. I can't put them through that. Especially not if I end up aborting the baby."

I blew out a long breath. "I don't know. I mean, I really want to help you, but I just don't know what to say. Honestly, I think you should get rid. You said it yourself; you're not ready for a kid yet. I mean, I don't think you'd be able to travel well as you're a few months gone and having to waddle around as your pokémon battle."

She managed to laugh at that. "Yeah, that's true. Thanks. I don't know what to do either, but I just needed someone to talk to about this. I've got an appointment soon anyway for a consultation about this all. You know that big company? Pathornogix?"

I frowned. The name rang a bell. I just couldn't tell where from.

"I've heard of it," I said. "Can't remember where from."

"You've probably seen it in the papers or on the internet," Mia told me. "They're the ones that specialise in preventing stillbirths. If I get rid of my kid, at least they could probably use the foetus to help."

My mind was still slightly elsewhere as I thought about where I'd heard the name before. "That sounds like a good idea, actually. How do they even use that to help?"

She laughed. "No clue. It's all way too sciencey for me. Last time I did any sort of education was in my exams before I became a trainer. Thanks though, I needed to talk. Anyway, I should probably go; I've wandered off a little bit from my pokémon and they really do worry if I'm away from them for too long."

I could relate to her problems. I had Xander acting as bodyguard for me whenever Lacey or Erra came close. I guessed it was because he didn't trust them, after they'd ended up accidentally injuring me. Granted my ribs and my ear still hurt. All of it was just because Erra still hated Lacey for the shiftry's brutal methods of helping me capture her.

Looking towards the long-term was never my forte.

* * *

It took me a few more days to finally figure out where I'd heard the name Pathornogix before. It was from my research in Slateport – at least when I'd used the internet in Fortree I didn't end up somehow opening up a massive pornography virus.

Everything Mia said was true. I still hadn't found out anything about what could have been behind the strange outbreaks in various little towns. I checked the news and it had reached Slateport – apparently no one had died in this one, yet there were a few people in hospital.

It played on my mind that I still hadn't figured out where that strange Italian speaking man from the boat towards Slateport worked. I still hadn't figured out what he'd said, either.

I didn't spend long in Fortree, aside from checking in the pokémon centre and trying to get my pokémon healed. It turned out that everyone else was, in fact, suffering from poké balls not working. It meant that the pokémon centre was rather busy with various different pokémon everywhere and many trainers all complaining about the failing technology.

It also came with another problem.

Poké balls suspended the current state of the pokémon, or something to that effect. It meant that if something was really badly injured, in most cases, its case wouldn't worsen. The only exceptions were with cases or bad poisoning or evolution.

In that pokémon centre alone there were fifteen different trainers with one or more dead pokémon, as a result of it all.

I also found out that Gemini didn't seem to appreciate having to walk through a town. Among her sarcastic, derogatory comments about the various different people – some of which, I have to admit were quite brilliant – there were a few more directed at me. She really didn't like humans who kept pokémon locked up in poké balls and pointed out the various different pokémon who were rejoicing at being free for so long.

In all honestly, it was quite entertaining to sit there and watch some people with their more unruly pokémon. It made me feel better about having suffered the same thing, though it mainly made me happier just because it was quite funny to watch.

Until one kid's scyther decapitated another kid's granbull. Then all hell broke loose. It took a few more accomplished trainers to come in and subdue the subsequent battle royale.

I managed to make a quick getaway before they realised a number of my pokémon were actively involved in such a brawl.

As strange as it was though, I found it better that the poké balls had stopped working. If anything, my team seemed a little calmer. They didn't fight or argue as much, or even act as maddeningly insane.

Xander was still intent on being my own personal bodyguard though.

"So what do you reckon we do now?" I asked him as we sat on watch one night. We were somewhere between Fortree and Lilycove without a defined goal in the way. I hadn't found out much at Fortree and couldn't even scope out the land, if only because there were so many trainers in a panic there.

Xander just gave the nearest he could to a shrug. I sighed and scratched his head, idly staring out at the dark horizon and wondering just what the hell to do with my life. My phantom kidney pains were still being a bitch, though they weren't as bad compared to my ribs or my ear.

I'd managed to bandage my ribs, but ended up getting my chest cut a little bit more than I would have liked. It turned out that while Scar might have looked after members of his clan, he was certainly no first aider. Asking him to cut the bandages for me was about as safe as rubbing your face against a power sander.

"What are we on now?" I asked my pokémon conversationally. "July? We've got like a few months left until everything's up shit creek. And I still have no exact clue what I'm meant to do. That stupid celebi could have at least given me a hint towards what I needed to do. Instead all I've managed to do is kill an Elite and possibly send racial tensions overboard into a full-blown war. Maybe it'd be easier just to find these stupid racist leaders and quietly do away with them."

Xander nudged me in the leg, his face displaying his lack of amusement. I sighed and waved a hand at him. "Yeah, yeah, I know. No going on murdering sprees. But it's just easier that way. People aren't a problem when they're slowly decomposing in the ground."

My lombre seemed even less impressed with that. He spat a globule of ice-cold water down my back and made me yelp with the sudden change in temperature.

"You're an ass," I told him. "If I scorched you with a lighter, that'd be pokémon abuse. You trying to freeze my lungs from the inside out? People would just see that as you being playful." I grinned as he gave me a condescending look. I could feel Gemini somewhere nearby – her second head was keep sending little messages of sleep into my brain. My eyes were tired and I couldn't stifle the yawn that came with the drowsiness.

Xander croaked and nudged me towards my sleeping bag. I protested as much as I could and told him that it was just Gemini's instinctive head taking effect, but he didn't seem to want to listen to me.

I allowed my pokémon to force to bed and waited for Loki to scamper back to us once I called him. He leapt at me, cackling happily in the night sky and showing me a strange glowing green stone.

I jumped up at the sight of the stone and panicked for a brief second; worried it would somehow distort one of my pokémon. When my brain finally cleared up enough to tell me none of my pokémon would be affected by its radiation, I let Loki have his randomly-found treat, silently hoping that he hadn't mugged another trainer of their items.

I realised that I probably wasn't teaching my pokémon the best of habits.

All of my concerns faded, however, once I felt Gemini try to talk to me. A little bit of me wondered just whether or not Xander had put her up to putting me to sleep just before I hit my sleeping bag and passed out.

* * *

_/I stare out at the sunset and watch the world come to a close for another day._

_Shame nothing seems to fall asleep with the coming of night these days._

_I sigh to myself and turn towards my pokémon. I see a vespiquen fluttering about nearby me and feel no fear. Something lets me know the creature is mine, yet I can't manage to recall its name._

_I shrug and turn back around, content to just watch and wait._

_I know I'm waiting. Anxiety is dancing in my every heartbeat. It makes my stomach flutter like I'm a nervous teenager and threatens to force bile back up my throat._

_My hands become fists and I punch the ground beneath them. I hate the fact that after everything I've seen and everything I've done, just this one _person_ is enough to make me feel nerves I thought I'd conquered long ago._

_I flinch at the distant sound of gunfire._

_The vespiquen makes an annoyed sound as she flies by my side. Her wings beat me with a gentle breeze that only makes goosebumps erupt over my skin. When I said I wanted to visit Sinnoh, I never really realised just how could it was going to be._

"_It's not anyone we know," I tell the flying bug. It buzzes something I know is a confirmation of my statement. Little grubs crawl out of her large abdomen and fall gracelessly to the floor. The vespiquen itself wastes no time in dropping to the floor and consuming the fallen._

_I turn away from the creature, annoyed that somehow, a part of me can't remember her name. I feel like part of me is watching myself through a dream, but I'm honestly not certain what way round it is._

_I ignore it and focus on the distant sound of gunfire. The sounds tell me people are panicking – spraying their attackers with automatic fire. _

Amateurs_, a part of me snipes._

_A bigger part of me screams for my body to tack action. My muscles fight a war against themselves – help the people you can! Maybe one day you'll be in the same position!_

_I swallow the thought down with a quick swig of whiskey. The liquid fire burns down my throat and makes a little flourish of heat spread from my stomach. Instantly I waver a bit and feel a little bit of the world spin._

"_I haven't eaten yet today, have I?" I ask the vespiquen by my side. She hisses something I know is a condescending nag. I ignore the thought and continue to stare back out towards the empty stretch of town beneath me. When I'm done waiting, I'll think about eating._

_I hear screams closer to me._

_My heart shrieks at me to help. I ignore it once more and try to drown out the noise as best I can._

_Then I hear a scream I recognise._

_My body turns to ice for a little moment. It passes quickly and I'm on my feet, slamming ammo into my guns and cursing the world itself. The town begins to blur past me as I race through the small moment in time it's become._

_My brain is only able to function in small bursts. Jump over a body. Left. Right. Avoid the pokémon. Shoot. Shoot. SHOOT!_

_I leap over another pile of corpses and round a final corner._

_There I find exactly who I've been looking for._

_She's accompanied by a pack of hungry mightyena._

_Her head turns just a little to acknowledge me._

"_Oh, hi Timothy."_

_There's a little gust of wind as her pidgey flutters down and sits atop my head. He shrieks at the approaching pack of creatures as if his tiny cries are enough to scare them off._

_I don't give myself the time to think about anything. My finger's already found the trigger I need._

"_Down!" I scream as I begin spraying the wolves with bullets._

_The woman jumps on the floor as the gun rattles in my hands, throwing me off-balance with its harsh recoil. Timothy tweets from atop my head, mimicking the sound of gunfire and flapping his tiny wings at the surviving hounds._

_The vespiquen flutters above my gunfire and sends little insects in for war. As soon as I stop firing she dives in at the final creatures, rips them apart with her claws and claims an eye with her mandibles._

_It doesn't take long for the hounds to die. I smirk as I holster the gun, glance around the street and offer the woman my hand._

"_Really?" I ask her as she stands back up. "Was a food run really worth pissing off a pack of mightyena?"_

_She flashes a smirk that makes my heart skip a beat. "I found chocolate," she declares and waves the little item of food in my face. "Worth every moment of panic."_

_I laugh and snatch a square from her. "You're insane."_

_She winks and steals the food back off me. "You wouldn't love me otherwise," she declares and pops the chocolate in her mouth. "Now come on, sharpshooter! Let's get out of here before everything else comes searching down whoever shot the street instead of the hungry beasts!"_

_I'm struck dumb by the insult for only a second. She laughs, kisses my cheek and darts off quickly, Timothy the pidgey chirping as he quickly takes after._

_The vespiquen grunts something in my ear._

"_I know," I tell the pokémon. "She'll be the death of me."/_

* * *

I woke up slowly and wondered just what the hell my brain was playing at. My ribs were killing me from a little stone digging into my side during my sleep and the little bit of alcohol in my dream seemed to have made even my reality a constant blur. Only the darkness around me let me know I hadn't slept for a long time.

"Oww…" I groaned and placed a hand on my side, pressing down on it as hard as I could. I fished around in my bag for some painkillers, popped them as quickly as I could and found a set of red eyes staring at me after I drained my canteen.

"My ribs hurt," I told Alistair. "I'm fine."

His eyes narrowed in suspicion and my brain finally told me he was squatting in front of me. _[Perhaps you are sir, but what happens when you start taking them when there is no pain?]_

I frowned at the creature. "I'm not going to. I told you the truth, so accept that. My ribs hurt after I was a stupid ass and jumped between my pokémon because I thought they wouldn't attack me. _Forgive me_ for thinking my pokémon might actually put my safety over their hatred of each other."

I blew some of my hair from my face and felt my frown turn into a glare. "I'm trying here, okay? You can read my mind, I'm sure you can tell I'm actually in _pain_. Now stop accusing me of things that I'm not doing."

He fixed me with a glare enough to rival my own. _[Then what happens when you actually start doing so, sir?]_

"But I'm _not!"_ I shouted in a whisper at him. "I'm taking enough to dull the pain, not make myself clueless and dribble incoherently, alright? Chris told me that shit I was injecting was designed for poisonous pokémon and I gave every bit of it to her! Even if I wanted to, I can't because I don't have access to anything like it!"

_[And what happens when you do?]_

"That'll be an interesting day," I snarled at him. "Now get out of my face. I'm having freaky dreams and waking up in near-agony. Being accused of random shit I'm not doing isn't exactly putting me in a good mood."

He stood up and watched me clamber to my feet in silence. Once he was certain that I wasn't going to do anything rash – or that I wasn't in any more obvious pain – he bowed, told me he was going to train with Scar and stalked off into the woods.

I folded my arms and spared a glance towards my surroundings. "Chapter whatever in my life; my pokémon don't trust me to medicate myself and function on a daily basis."

Loki bounced up at my heels, chattering furiously until I sighed and picked him up. He grunted something unintelligible at me and gave me his glowing green stone. I couldn't help but laugh at the stupidity of taking a chewed-on evolution stone off my pokémon. It smelt strangely of fresh cut grass and I found my temper subsiding just a little with the smell.

"That's a weird stone you've got there," I told my sableye. He nodded eagerly and warbled a few syllables at me. I got enough of what he was trying to say – he was worried about me.

"You've got nothing to worry about," I told him. "It's just Alistair being an ass. And me getting angry because what he's saying is true." I shrugged to myself and dropped Loki on the floor. "Now come on, since I'm up, we might as well run a few drills. We're not challenging gyms at the moment, so I need to make sure that you guys are still in shape."

He didn't argue with me and I was surprised to find that Loki hunted down Erra pretty quickly to train with. Xander appeared as if out of nowhere, cloaked by a little mist once I started helping Erra train. I couldn't help but wonder just how much of his actions were him looking out for my best interests or just him not trusting Erra.

I finally dropped down next to him and smiled as I patted him on his head.

"Sleep didn't help, you know?" I told him. "It gave me more freaky dreams, more aches and pains and no more ideas as to how to stop the world changing, or even just finding that stupid Celebi."

I threw a curse at the heavens and punched the ground around me. "This is all just really stupid. Why do psychics have to be so damned vague about things? Have I mentioned that I really don't like psychics? Present company included."

_[Pleasant.]_

I smirked at the shadow in the darkness. "Hey, you hate on humans all the time. One little dig at pokémon and I'm in the wrong?"

Gemini snorted as she cantered towards me. She took a glance at Xander, whinnied and sat herself down next to him softly. _[You're in the wrong most of the time. Like your current attitude of moaning about your situation, rather than doing what needs to be done.]_

I rolled my eyes. "And what would you do then Gem?"

_[Gemini,]_ she corrected automatically. She had a strange habit of every name having to be said in full. She even constantly called me by my full name, which I was fairly certain I had never told her before.

_[And I would seek out the creature. Celebi stick to forests. We should search out the creatures of the forest and see whether or not they have seen the damned thing.]_

"We'd be playing catch up then, wouldn't we?" I asked her, even though I considered the idea for its merits. "So what did the celebi actually do to you to make you hate it so? I know you don't want to tell me, but at the same time, how do I know you aren't just going to use me as a sacrifice for it?"

Both her head and tail glared at me. _[That creature has no need for anymore sacrifices.]_

Her glare relented as she moved her gaze to the campfire. There was a pregnant silence that I felt like she would never dare break.

Then finally, she spoke up.

_[Psychics… we all share a telepathic bond with others of our species.]_

I nodded. "I'd guessed. There were a couple of gardevoir I killed before in Dewford. Then another seemed to know about it."

_[Don't interrupt if you don't know what you're talking about.__]_ Gemini fixed me with a flat look that easily conveyed how pissed off she was. I fell silent and waited for her to start speaking again.

Her ears flickered in my direction. _[Each species has a different form of a bond. Gardevoir and the like send out a distress beacon when they're in danger. It alerts others of their species, sending them a picture image of the object of their distress. And before you ask, I know this because I have spoken to the gallade Alistair._

_[My own species is rather different. We form attached bonds with our young. Each parent-child couple has a permanent psychic bond. It allows us to share exactly what we see and think, whenever we want.]_

It was the way she said it which let me gather instantly the implication behind her words.

_[There was a trainer some time ago who became quite famous among humans.]_

I guessed where this was going. "I've heard about him. The one that had a load of attention from the media, yet vanished overnight and no one can remember him properly?"

_[For once you are right,]_ Gemini said. _[He was another of these trainers that the Celebi recruited to its cause. The trainer travelled with a girafarig.]_

"That was you, right?" I guessed. Xander gave me a flat look that showed me just how clueless he thought I was.

_[Your mouth is speaking, you should remedy that,]_ Gemini deadpanned. _[It was not me, but instead my foal. He travelled with this trainer for some time. Then eventually, the Celebi – the very same one that brought you here, I suspect – decided that he had outlived his usefulness. It somehow managed to make it so that most evidence of the trainer's existence disappeared or just became warped.]_

"So how do you know about this then?" I asked her.

She gave me a flat look. _[Have you not been paying attention? My foal travelled with this human. I was able to see what my foal saw at times. I do not know what happened to the trainer.]_

She looked away from the fire and towards the floor. I'd never seen a pokémon look so upset about something.

I felt like I had to ask something about it. "So you didn't find out what happened with your foal then?"

She gave the briefest of nods. _[The Celebi opened up a small portal to the future. I don't know what happened to the trainer. What I do know is that my foal got sent to the future. I saw every moment of the life it suffered in such a location. That future is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. I came to you because I see certain similarities in what my foal suffered to the images in your mind. The Celebi will suffer for what it made my foal endure.]_

I was silent. I just didn't know what to say to that. The only sounds I could hear for a while were my own breathing and Loki training with Erra. If I concentrated enough I could hear Alistair and Scar off in the distance too. Only Lacey remained hidden somewhere in the woods. My mind wandered just a little and told me she had probably found a way to double back to her former clan. I knew she was a cruel creature at times, but I knew that even she had a heart. With her gone for the better part of the day, I figured she was paying her final respects or apologising to the dead.

_[Anger guides us all in key motions,]_ Gemini finally said in a whisper. _[The key is maintaining control. Never give in.]_

With that she got up and left.

I glanced at Xander, who looked as confused as I felt. I shrugged and stared up at the sky, wondering just what the hell my new accomplice meant when I saw a large shadow fly past the moon.

Instantly I was on my feet and glaring at the ceiling of sky.

"Xander, get ready," I whispered as I readied my gun. "Something big's just flown past." I pointed off to the distance, where the large shadow seemed to have stopped in place in the sky. If I squinted enough I could see its body twisted like it was facing me. "It looks like its staring at us too."

He warbled something and stared at the creature in the distance. I called for Erra and Loki to stop their training so I could get them ready for whatever fight was to come. Erra hissed something and hovered by my side, her body dancing with sparks.

Only Loki didn't seem to be worried. In fact, he was bouncing up and down on the spot and throwing his arms about, almost like he was waving at the strange thing.

Confusion helped to lower my guard. "Wait a minute guys," I whispered, holding my hand up for them to stop. I saw the large shadow heading towards the ground and caught sight of what seemed to be someone sat atop the creature.

Someone was riding the pokémon.

The single thought filled me with trepidation and intrigue at once.

I was about to order my pokémon to attack, just to be on the safe side.

Then I heard a familiar whoop from atop the pokémon.

"Does he really have to fly at night?" I muttered to myself as I holstered my gun. "Guys, it's alright, you can stand down. Xander, just soak him when he gets close enough anyway."

I closed my eyes as the large pokémon got closer, its wings beating a breeze and sand down on us. I heard Loki's excited chatter increase in volume even as Erra growled something and fluttered closer to my head.

As the sand stopped scraping my face I opened my eyes and glanced at the person getting off the flygon. He flashed me a grin that was barely visible in the dark before he cursed his pokémon.

"I've got a wedgie thanks to your flying."

I burst out laughing at the entrance that could only belong to Adryan. He glanced at me, rubbed the back of his head in an embarrassed laugh and sighed as he readjusted himself.

"Hey Soldier Boy." He pulled me into a hug and laughed as Xander soaked him to the bone once he pulled away. "I guess I should be thankful your lombre just decided to drown me."

I smiled and scratched Xander's head. "Don't be overconfident yet, he's just making it easier to freeze you."

"Figures," Ayd muttered. "So no, _'How you been? Where's your pokémon? Why are you here in the middle of the night?'_"

I shrugged. "I was just about to ask that. Not my fault you're stealing all the attention once more."

He laughed and pointed to a spot next to his flygon. "Talking of attention stealing."

I followed where he was pointing to…

Then had a heart attack as his dusknoir appeared from the ground.

"Holy-!" I shrieked and found myself about to punch the randomly appearing pokémon. "Where the-? What? Just… how?"

Ayd smirked. "Ripper's just teleporting with style. He likes making grand entrances. Though, not like I can talk. But he's the only one I could really bring alongside Irenui. No one else can fly so quickly or teleport so far." He laughed as Loki bounced up to him, pointed at his leg and began to cackle like a lunatic. I snorted to myself as Ayd watched the sableye, oblivious to what the pokémon was on about.

"You don't want to know," I told him. He knew Loki had humped his leg in his sleep, but I figured he hadn't dropped by to reminisce about such things. I let Loki scamper over to the dusknoir and watched both Erra and Xander talk to the flygon. The vague little pulling at the back of my head let me know that both Alistair and Gemini were close by too.

"Probably not," Adryan agreed with a shrug. "Anyway, as to why I'm here, seeing as I didn't fly all the way from Lavaridge for no good reason. Long story short; there's a lab near here-"

"The Pathornogix one, right?" I asked quickly.

Shock attacked his face. "Yeah, that's the one. I'm surprised you know about that," he admitted with a laugh. "You're usually quite clueless to these things. Anyway, Dad works in another lab and I've been talking to him about little things. Turns out our friends at that little lab are behind these little spills of disease and death that a few towns have been suffering."

My heart stopped for a moment as my brain processed the information. It was so hard to believe that the information I needed had dropped so easily into my lap! So much of me wanted to celebrate that I was finally on track with what I needed to do. The little bit of me that panicked about what would happen to me once I'd dealt with them was quashed quickly by another key fear leaping to the surface:

"Mia's got an appointment there in a few days," I said without thinking.

"Why?" Adryan asked. "Actually, never mind, I don't really want to know. Point is; this lab's been behind these attacks, so what're we gonna do about it?"

"_We?"_

He nodded. "Damn straight," he said and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, I told you before; if you need to save the world, count me in to help. It's why I've brought these two," he said and jabbed his thumb towards his pokémon. "Irenui's a quick flyer and Ripper can walk through walls. What more do we need?"

It was all falling into place.

The first real step on my road to finally changing the world.

I couldn't stop the smile that came to my face. "Adryan, I think it's about time we start to save the world."

I never did get to save it.

But I paid the price anyway.


	44. Falling

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Falling**

* * *

_A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it _~ Oscar Wilde

**-O-O-O-**

"_You fall? You get back up again. You can't get back up? You get carried. Keep fighting. Because if you can't get back up again, you're looking at one fucked up existence."_

- Lieutenant Dan Surge, ex-soldier and Vermillion City Gym Leader 3003 – 3011. (Unknown date)

**-O-O-O-**

"You're going to have to run this all by me one more time."

Adryan sighed and looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "You're kidding me, _right?_ How many times have we gone over this? I need to be back in work in two days' time – you're going to end up keeping me here until the end of the year."

I folded my arms and rolled my eyes. I was vaguely aware that my pokémon were all either relaxing somewhere behind me or just lazing by the little campfire in front. "We need to go over it and make sure we know what we're doing. Do you really want to take a wrong turn and end up walking into a swimming pool filled with acid?"

Ayd snorted a laugh and poked our crudely drawn plans. "There's not a massive vat of acid like that anywhere in here. According to what Dad said, their labs are mainly just filled with foetuses, random chemicals and a few staff here and there. They've got the same sort of quarantine procedure's Dad's lab has too – if anything airborne gets out of a quarantine they lock down that entire section. You let anything loose, you're going to be caught. I can-"

"_You're_ staying out of this," I said quickly. "You got all this from your dad, right? That means if they find anything linking you to this, you or your dad's going to drown in shit creek. I'm going to go through the lab and do all of this – you just make sure you're waiting outside to get me out as quickly as I can."

He grimaced and poked at the plans again. "But you need to get to this room here! Once you destroy everything there, you're going to let everyone inside know they're being broken into! You can't do this on your own!"

"I'm not going to," I said with a smirk. "Loki's coming with me. He can walk through walls and disappear in shadows. What more do I need?"

Ayd sighed and pulled a hand across his face. "Fine, I can't argue with that. But you know to go straight for the labs, right? You need to destroy all the chemicals in there – fire's probably the only way. Their research on stillbirths might go under, but they'll have it all documented electronically. They might have everything about this weird poison stored on the computers too, but if we cripple their actual data and stock of it, we should buy ourselves enough time to figure out how to destroy that and only that electronically."

I groaned and clutched my temples. "There's too many clauses here. Can I not just blow up the entire place?"

Ayd's face lost all humour instantly. "There's people there. Innocent people that have nothing to do with all of this. Killing people's only going to make things worse – look at what you did with Aaron as case and point."

I flinched and looked away. "That wasn't intentional, okay? I thought it was for the best!"

He shrugged. "I'm not saying it's not. But the problem is that little things can get blown up by other people. Sinnoh and Hoenn have hated each other for ages, but," he sighed and wiped a hand through his hair, "whatever. Shit happened, it should sort itself out. If not, one little thing from your future's happened, while everything else might be able to be stopped."

"Yeah," I said with a quick nod. "But this… I dunno. It feels a bit too neat. It's too easy, I shouldn't be able to know something so cut and dry about what I'm meant to do."

"Why?" said Ayd with a laugh. "Because psychics speak in riddle and rhyme? Some can speak sense, you know."

"So you say," I griped. "But if you turn out to be a bad guy and you've been playing me off for your own goals, I'm going to shoot you in the back of the head. Just so we're clear."

He just frowned at me. "I'm being straight with you here. This needs to be done to help the world. I might have done insane, weird, sometimes illegal things, but you can trust me when I say that I'm trying to help you here."

"Fine." I smirked at him and pointed to a large room on our infant-standard drawings. "So this is the room I need to get to, right? Where they store the top secret experiments?"

Ayd nodded. "Yeah. They've probably got a few other labs holding the same stuff, but this should be enough of a blow here. Any ideas what we've got to do after this?"

I managed a small smile. "Let's just deal with this first, alright? So Ripper's going to phase into the lab, have a quick glance around and then teleport me and Loki in. I need to find this little lab and destroy the chemicals in there. Loki can destroy all the computers while I'm doing that. Then we can meet near the roof to escape."

"What if that doesn't work out then?"

I shrugged. "I have my phone – I should be able to ring you. Loki will be fine – he can just walk through the walls if anything bad is coming down on him. I'm more worried about me if things go wrong. I don't have the ability to phase through solid objects or become near-invisible in shadows."

"I don't like this," Adryan mumbled. "We should get some other people in on this. Surely there's someone else The Celebi brought to the future, right?"

My thoughts went briefly to the girl in the trilby hat. I wondered just what had happened to her and figured that she'd probably died when I had Scar set fire to the entire place.

No big loss, I figured.

"Not as far as I'm aware," I lied. Maybe there were others. Maybe there weren't. Either way, I didn't care. I figured I didn't have enough time to be wasting on the ideal situation for this to happen in. It needed to be done as quickly as possible, I decided. "We need to get this done here and now. Your dad's figured everything about this lab now, right?"

Ayd gave a guilty nod. "Yeah, most of it-"

"Then that means they might update their security soon," I interrupted him. "So our opportunity will be gone. We know this now, we do this now."

"Alright," he relented. "So when are we doing this?"

I shrugged and glanced at Irenui. "How long would she take to fly us there?"

He glanced at his flygon and then at his five o' clock. "About half an hour if the conditions are good? Maybe a bit more if we don't want them detecting us."

I nodded and stood to start packing my stuff. "Then we're doing it in half an hour."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Adryan yelped and jumped to his feet after me. He snatched my wrist and pulled me to face him. "We can't go and do this with half-cocked plans. This is _serious!_ I'm not even sure what the legal term is for going in and destroying government-funded research, but I'm pretty damn sure it comes with hefty prison sentences!"

His panic washed over me, not affecting my smirk in the slightest. "That's why you're staying out of this. You're blameless, so is your dad. If they catch me… well, I'm from the future. It's not like they can convict someone who doesn't exist yet, right?"

He just rolled his eyes at me. "Yeah, instead they'll either just kill you, since there's no record of you, or dissect you in the name of science."

"I'll deal with that when needs come to it," I told him breezily. "Right now, we need to prepare for this. Make sure your pokémon are ready to travel. My gun's fully loaded and cleaned – I won't use it, if that's what you're worrying about," I said quickly as his face fell in shock. "I'm just taking it in case something goes wrong. Guns can be intimidating. It's too loud to use indoors but if shit goes down, I'd rather have a gun than a knife."

"Fine," Adryan muttered. "Just don't go on random murder sprees."

I managed a laugh. "You sound like Xander. And besides, you're one to talk!"

It was his turn to flinch and look away. "They weren't random murder sprees and the people weren't innocent."

_The man I saw you kill was._

Not like I could tell him though.

"Whatever," I growled. "Let's just not argue about this, alright? We'll sort it out afterwards." I turned away from him and moved towards my pokémon. "Loki, I'm gonna need your help on a job for a little bit. There's a little bit of danger here, but you're the one I need here. Help me out, do what I say and I'll get you a few of those stones you like so much."

He leapt up happily and danced by my side, eager to cause as much mischief as he could. I smiled and told him that we'd be leaving soon before I turned away and tried to find Scar. It wasn't hard to find the pokémon with a burning flame atop his tail; though I had to marvel at the way it didn't seem to burn the grass he was sat on.

I didn't have time to even bother thinking about why or how such a thing could happen.

"Hey Scar," I said as I approached the lizard. He turned at my voice and offered a small nod before adjusting himself and trying to go to sleep. I crouched down in front of him and poked him gently on his shoulder. His sapphire eyes snapped open, glaring palpable annoyance into my soul. "Need a favour," I told him. "Long story short, something I need to do that the time-pixie tasked me to do. With all the poké balls on the fritz, I can't take all of you with me. I'll need you and Alistair to look after everyone while I'm away."

He rose to his feet slowly and opened his mouth in a wide yawn. His eyes scanned our surroundings, took in all the pokémon around us and then finally fixed back on me. He growled a low sound and poked my arm.

"I'll be fine," I told him with a wave of my hand. "I'm taking Loki with me – all the rest of you are too likely to be hurt. Lacey's still A.W.O.L., but I think I know where she is. She'll turn up pretty soon, just let her know about this too. Try to keep on good terms with Gemini too – she might not like any of us much, but she knows a lot about that stupid celebi and how we can find it."

He gave a small nod and let me find Alistair to explain the situation to him too. He gave a quick affirmation, promised me that everything would be fine under his and Scar's care, then set off to find something for everyone to eat.

I let my pokémon explain the situation to Erra and Gemini. Xander was the only one I decided I should really explain the situation too. Once I did, his face fell into an obvious unease. He bumped my legs with his head as I turned to leave and croaked in distaste.

"I'll be fine," I told him and patted his head. He growled and snatched the cuffs of my camo pants in his mouth, growling around the fabric and attempting to pull me towards him.

I caught his meaning instantly and tried my best to pull away. "I can't take you with me Xander. This is dangerous. If Loki gets in trouble, he can disappear. If you do, you're a sitting target."

He continued to growl and pull on my clothes. He wasn't letting go anytime soon and as much as I tried to retrieve my leg, he just seemed to be stubborn enough to keep hold.

"_Fine!"_ I growled and finally succeeded in reclaiming my leg. "You can come if you want. Just stay out of the way and try not to get yourself in trouble. I don't want anyone else there because otherwise I'm going to be worrying about you whilst I'm in there. I _can't_ have you there because of that. But if you're going to be like this, I've got no choice." I crouched to his level and cupped his face in my hands. "Promise me you're going to stay out of the way during this, alright? This is important – I can't let myself get distracted during this."

There was a sudden gust of wind behind me, scratching my body with little bits of sand. I spun around to find Irenui staring at me; Adryan sat on her back and tense with anticipation.

"Get on," he said, voice low and serious. "We've gotta get this out of the way as soon as possible, right?"

"Sure," I said with a quick nod. "Xander's coming too. Looks like he wants to see through the quest I told him I'd need his help in completing."

It was another lie, but it wasn't like I could tell him the truth. 'My pokémon doesn't trust me not to go on a murdering spree' weren't exactly words of great inspiration.

"Alright," he muttered. "It'll be a tight ride, but we should all be able to fit. Ripper's gonna teleport there. All goes well, should be an in-and-out job."

* * *

The ride there was silent. Even Loki was oddly quiet as we flew towards the mysterious laboratory on the outskirts of Lilycove. Adryan guided his flygon to land just over a quarter of a mile from the mysterious place.

Xander leapt off Irenui and landed neatly by my feet, stretching out awkwardly on the damp grass. Loki was a lot more alive and excited, happily jumping about before he began pacing nervously and tapping his hands together.

Ripper appeared out of the ground once more, his looming red eye acting like a sinister beacon in the night environment. It washed over me, made my skin crawl and I barely stopped myself from audibly shuddering.

The light filtered past me and I felt a little warmth return to my body. Both my pokémon gave me weird looks and my mind wandered to what it all meant.

"We're here," Adryan said unnecessarily. "Ripper, you know what to do." I watched as the pokémon circled his trainer in a hover, growled something unintelligible and vanished back into the ground. With his disappearance the strange red light vanished, bathing us in darkness again.

"He'll be back in under a minute," Ayd told me. "Once he's back, he can warp you to where you need to go. Once he does so, I'll wait about twenty minutes, then I'll have Irenui fly me onto the roof. By that time, you should have been able to disable all the roof alarms. Shouldn't take you more than another ten minutes to find the lab and destroy the samples."

"Got it," I said with a nod. "While that's happening, Loki can go along and destroy the computers. I'll bring Xander along with me." Ripper appeared again from the floor and circled around us both this time, watching us in eerie silence.

"Ready?" Adryan asked me.

I'd barely managed to nod before the dusknoir grabbed me. Everything turned black for a second and it felt like my stomach was twisted into a tight not, ripped free from my body and then shoved in again through my back.

Abruptly everything changed into whitewashed walls and a strange, sterile smell. Harsh lights flicked above me and made my eyes scrunch shut. I heard both my pokémon growl as they did the same and figured that Ripper had managed to teleport all three of us at once.

Even with my eyes shut I could see Ripper's single red eye glaring straight at me. I opened my eyes a little to find the ghost floating before me, seemingly waiting for me to be able to function.

He sailed silently through the air towards me and gripped my face in his cold, clammy hands. A sudden chill filled the air and cold raced completely through my body.

His eye narrowed and seemed to stare through mine.

"_Thou must remember thine purpose."_

I didn't have time to question him before he just vanished from existence. I blinked and looked at both of my pokémon who just shared my own confusion.

"Keep quiet guys," I whispered as I drew my gun and took a steeling breath. Everything had led to this – my training, my journey, all to creep through a variety of similar-looking corridors and destroy a virus that was killing people.

There hadn't been any changes that were similar to what I knew.

In fact, I'd never heard of such a plague before.

_What if this doesn't do anything?_

I shredded the single thought of doubt and threw it away. I needed to do this. If it wasn't going to change anything at least it would prove that I was capable of doing _something_. I couldn't wait around and try to run away from my fate – doing that had only got some of my pokémon killed or damage, as well as myself and my friends.

The constant throbbing itch in my elbow was testament to that.

I scratched it on reflex, digging my nails deep and using the pain as a distraction and a focus.

Xander nudged my leg and stared at my gun disapprovingly. I shot him a small smile and quickly checked that it was loaded.

"I'm not going to fire it," I reassured him. "I'll probably end up deafening us all by doing that in here. I figure that only security in here will have guns – the scientists and everyone else probably won't. Seeing one should be enough to intimidate them. If they do have one well-" I shrugged and motioned for Loki to check our surroundings, "-I figure that since I'm still a teenager, it might make them hesitate for a second. Besides, you haven't learnt how to freeze things yet, so we're going to have to rely on what we know."

Loki growled as he stuck his head through the wall behind me. He made a quick few gestures I understood immediately.

All clear.

"Keep close," I whispered to my pokémon. My heart was racing with adrenaline and fear. I just hoped my pokémon didn't pick up on it. I took another breath and began to sneak through the halls.

My mind was abuzz after the first step. I remembered the plans Adryan and I had drawn out, all taken from a crude picture of the laboratory's layout Adryan had taken on his phone. Ripper teleported me in just next to the disabled toilets on the ground floor. I had to creep my way up two flights of stairs and somehow get through a secure area to destroy all the lab samples.

While I was doing that, Loki would have to part ways with us and find his way to the middle floor computer labs and destroy all the information they'd gathered. Afterwards, he could get rid of the electricity to the place and hopefully stumble them a bit more.

But first I had to get to the security office and disable the cameras inside and outside. That way I could sneak through unhindered by electronic watchers and Adryan would be able to land on the roof without detection.

It was a big place for somewhere that supposedly only looked for ways to cure and stop stillbirths.

I shuffled around a corner and traced the maps in my mind. Three more lefts, a right and then at the end of the final corridor would be my target.

I glanced at my watch.

Seventeen minutes, thirty seconds.

Seventeen and a half. It was my age in minutes.

The thought made my brain leap into action with conspiracy theories and farfetched scenarios.

I shut my mind down and focused on the objective.

Loki crept round another corner at my order. Xander stuck close by me, sneaking like an expert. He'd flooded the disabled toilets without me even ordering him to do so. At first I thought it was him causing mischief – he always did seem to become a bit of a prankster around Loki.

Then I realised the brilliance of his actions.

Flooding them would probably cause whoever walked past to stop and check. They'd have to call in people to repair them and try to find what was causing the leak. It was a way to get more people out of my way without ever having to go near them.

It just meant I had to stay out of the way, in case they came my way to investigate the flooding.

Even still, it was an act of genius.

I glanced at my arms and felt myself frown. I needed a way to blend in. Maybe a lab coat. It would probably let me walk around the labs with a bit more freedom. If anyone asked, I could claim I was doing work experience. My pokémon would have to stay hidden though – I doubted anyone was allowed to bring pokémon to work, even with the malfunctioning poké balls.

I'd have to adapt the plan as I went along. Less than an hour's planning wasn't really much to do a mission like this. Yet what we'd done was still pretty good.

Distant voices stole my attention. I gasped and pressed myself flat against the wall, heart racing and my fingers tensing around my gun. I couldn't figure out where they were, but I knew they were close.

I thought back to the plans in my head. The security office was near the front of the building. Neither Adryan nor I could figure out what the large room next to it was at the time though.

The realisation struck me like a tonne of bricks. _The reception room!_

I wanted to smack myself for being so stupid. Of course they would have a room like that near the front – it was right next to the primary entrance, in addition to the elevators and stairs. If anything went wrong, they could find it pretty quickly.

"Shit," I hissed to myself. I needed to think of a way to distract them all. I couldn't run in there waving my gun – that would freak them all out, cause a stampede and have everyone on my tail. Loki could scare them, maybe, but then they'd still be more aware and on the lookout.

"_Damn_ it!" I strained my ears to hear more from the people. It was all nonsensical chit-chat; people talking about their lives, why they're coming for abortions, why they want jobs. It was all normal conversations from normal people – people I could have been one of, had my life been a bit different.

"I need a way to distract them," I muttered to myself. "Flashbangs? Would be nice but I don't have any. Erra knows how to blind people, but she's not here. Maybe I could project some psychic signal and get Alistair to teleport here?"

Xander seemed to roll his eyes at me. "Yeah, he's not strong enough in psychic powers for that. What the hell can we do?"

Loki cackled, growled and pointed in the vague direction of the voices. I shook my head at him. He couldn't run in there and distract them all. He was too important for this.

Xander croaked and bounced forwards a few steps before I could stop him. As soon as I realised, my heart leapt into my mouth and I jumped after him. I couldn't let him use himself as bait! While Loki might have been important to everything, I couldn't lose my moral compass for a stupid reason as being bait.

"You're not letting yourself get taken away so I can do this," I told him as I grabbed his head and held him back. "Don't be stupid."

He looked at me as if to call me stupid. My guard dropped and he shoved his way out of my grip and hopped a few paces down the hall.

"_Xander!"_ I hissed after him.

He turned round and gave me a little smirk.

Then I finally realised what his plan was.

He took in a deep breath and blew out a little stream of cold, white mist. It shrouded around him perfectly, slowly increasing every time he breathed out. In no time flat the entire corridor was shrouded in imperceptible white mist. It hid us from everyone perfectly, encompassing us on all sides. Slowly it spilled out into the reception room, where the faint sounds of chatter became shouts and screams.

Fire alarms began blaring all throughout the building, startling me and making me leap nearly a foot into the air. Speakers I hadn't noticed above me flared into life with a buzz of static.

"_Can all personnel evacuate in a calm and collected manner,"_ it droned in a female voice. _"This is not a drill. Suspect contaminant released in reception area."_

I smiled at the distant sound of people evacuating the building as quickly as they could. Unable to help myself, I threw my arms around my pokémon and laughed as I probably choked the life out of him. "You're a genius, you know that?"

He smiled and loosened my grip enough for him to be able to breathe. He smacked me in the head with his tongue and nodded towards the end of the corridor, his smile fading into a serious visage.

"Right," I said and extracted myself from him. I coughed, adjusted my clothes and motioned for him and Loki to follow me. "Come on guys, off we go."

Loki growled by my side and clung to my leg, chattering at the mist. I realised he couldn't see well in the mist, unlike Xander and I. With a small sigh I patted him on the head, told him to keep a hold on me and set off towards the security room.

It took nothing more than a well-placed attack from Loki to break down the door. All the electronic security systems seemed useless when presented with a creature able to walk through walls. He cackled in delight once I presented him with a large computer console filled with monitors and blinking lights.

"Work your magic," I told him.

He threw back his head in a demonic laugh and leapt at the console, claws, teeth and feet all digging into the system. The little electric shocks he got from biting wires seemed to do nothing more than make him even more enthusiastic towards his goal.

Once he was finished it looked like the machine had suffered irreversible damage. I shrugged to myself, uncaring about how much they'd have to pay to replace it.

Before I left, I caught sight of a little chunk of black plastic knocked on the floor. The single walkie-talkie almost sparkled as I stared at it.

I snatched it up quickly and threw it in my bag. At least once the mist cleared, I would know what was going on.

* * *

"_Reception area clear. It wasn't an outbreak, just a pokémon producing a shrouding fog."_

I cursed and shoved the walkie-talkie into a pocket. They were figuring out things faster than I'd hoped. I'd only just managed to get to the top floor by the time they'd given the all clear for the front of the building. It'd probably take them only a few more minutes to find out the damage Loki had caused.

I felt a lot less safe without the little ghostly creature near me. He'd split from us in search of the computer labs. I figured that he'd be there pretty soon and delight in ripping apart every piece of electronic equipment he could find.

Xander sat by my side, glaring back at the stairs. He didn't seem to realise just how much effort it would be for him to hop up two flights of stairs.

"Come on," I whispered to him. "We gotta move quickly now. The labs are near us. Sooner we get done in there, the sooner we can be out of this place."

He gave a little nod and followed me diligently. Without Loki to peer through walls I was back to acting on paranoia, stopping at corners, waiting a few moments and leaping around, brandishing my gun and hoping to surprise whoever could be hiding on the other side.

Each time there was no one.

Each time Xander gave me a little incredulous look.

I rolled my eyes at him and continued regardless.

The silence of the labs was eerie. I could see in every direction down the halls, still see the paperwork people had left in their rush to get out and the various things that had been spilt everywhere.

It was like everyone had just been massacred, somehow leaving no trace of blood behind.

If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that was the case.

I shuddered to myself, plagued by little feelings of déjà vu. I bottled them up and glanced around, hoping for a little sign of where to go when the walkie-talkie in my pocket blared into life again.

"_Someone's attacked the security station. Looks like a pokémon was used to do so. Keep everyone outside and make a check of their pokémon – see if one could have snuck in and done this during the evac. You four! Start a sweep of the building! Take your pokémon with you!"_

I gulped and felt my pulse begin to race again. So they knew I was sneaking about in the building. They knew that I had pokémon on me. They'd sent in their own security, complete with weapons and pokémon of their own.

"Let's move," I told Xander. He followed me quickly, sticking by my side and not once getting in my way.

I found the entrance to the labs in less than a minute.

Getting in proved to be a bigger problem.

"Shit," I hissed as I stared at the electronic lock. No ghost to bypass it this time. I knew them to be water resistant – a few had survived to my time and even then, they proved difficult to bypass. Without a ghost, an electrical pokémon was needed or failing that, a hacker.

I saw Xander's throat swell and knew what he was going to do. "Water isn't going to work," I told him. We need to bypass this completely or just destroy it."

I glanced around for something good enough to break it with. My knife would just end up hitting the wires and probably electrocute me. I could risk it, but I didn't want to end up charred and electrified anytime soon. The door itself was reinforced scizor-grade metal. I wasn't getting past that without a _lot_ of fire.

"Crap," I muttered to myself as I stared at the only option I had. My ears were going to hate me for a while, but it was the only option I had.

I dove into my bag and found nothing that would work well enough. Not even any chewing gum or cotton wool. I cursed the air blue and ripped up a pair of socks, rolled the little bits of fabric into balls and stuffed them in my ears.

"Cover your ears," I told Xander. My voice sounded distant and distorted, but not enough. I plugged my already burnt ear with my left hand, swore at the pain it caused and pressed my gun straight on the lock.

I glanced at Xander, saw he'd done the best to cover his ears and fired.

The noise felt like it shattered my eardrums. The recoil threw my hand backwards and would have made me miss at any other distance. Pain shattered through my wrist and the force of my arm flying backwards made my ribs shriek in agony too. My right ear screamed like an alarm clock was buried deep inside and no matter how much I hit it, the ringing didn't seem to stop.

I touched my wrist and felt pain sting all around it.

"I'm pretty sure I've broken it," I muttered to myself. It sounded like I was hearing everything with headphones on. My wrist hurt, but I knew I'd still be able to use my hand. As long as I didn't lift anything heavy, I figured I'd be okay.

At least I'd managed to break the lock and open the door to the labs.

There was a gust of wind as a load of pressurised air washed over me, sending paperwork behind me scattering in artificial wind. Xander growled and stared forwards, apparently not liking what was inside.

I pulled the little strips of fabric from my ears and glanced at him. "Nearly better," I told him. It sounded like only one of my ears was blocked, which was an improvement.

Of course, it wasn't my only problem.

"_Shot fired! I repeat; shot fired! Sounds like it came from the top floor!"_

I cursed and prayed that I'd misheard the walkie-talkie. Even still, I moved as quickly as I could. I ran into the large, previously contained lab and found myself staring at a load of white benches covered in papers, chemicals, liquids and who-knew what else.

I didn't know what was what. My only option was to destroy it all. The only bit of chemistry I needed to know was what was flammable and what wasn't.

I found everything I needed pretty quickly. I poured as much of the flammable liquids over everything. Once I was certain everything was covered, I found the little metallic flame-columns everyone seemed to use for science.

One of them lit and knocked over later and the whole lab was ablaze.

Then the sprinklers activated.

"Fuck!" I hissed and pulled my gun free. I fired at one, only for the recoil to murder my wrist and send my aim flying way off target. The water wasn't doing much to douse the flames but it wouldn't take long for them all to be put out.

Xander bounced up on one of the stools and filled his mouth with a deep breath of air. He blew out a little stream of frost that froze over one of the sprinklers, covering it with a thick shield of ice. I laughed at his genius and quickly set about causing another blaze while he froze the sprinklers over.

I coughed and covered my face with my top, silently hoping that nothing I'd set fire to would kill me. The fires would probably melt the ice-covered sprinklers pretty quickly, but I hoped that everything would have been burnt up by then. When the water came, it would soak all the computers in the room and ruin them too.

Win-win.

"Come on!" I shouted at Xander. He leapt off his stool and bounced after me, glancing backwards towards the fiery lab.

Of course, our problems weren't over.

"Great," I groaned and threw myself behind an overturned desk. One of the security guards had made his way to the top floor. In his hands were a torch and a gun, crisscrossed over each other. His face said he meant business and by his side was a hissing, buzzing scyther that seemed to be itching for a fight.

I glanced at Xander and swore to myself. Of course he would be at a disadvantage to the security guard's pokémon. He could only really freeze some of it if the scyther was already wet, but the problem was its speed.

Back of its knees, bottom of its wings and base of its skull. Those were the only weak points it had.

Killing its trainer was out of the question. That would just make it angry. An angry scyther was a deadly scyther.

_Any_ scyther was a deadly scyther.

"Knock the guard's gun away," I hissed to Xander. "I'll distract the scyther."

He didn't question how I was going to distract the bug with bladed arms. He probably already knew what I was planning to do.

I scuttled backwards and found a glass of ethanol I hadn't used. It took less than thirty seconds to turn it into a Molotov.

I smirked at Xander and nodded silently at him. I took a breath and focused solely on the scyther. I had one chance to make it all count. I waited until its back was turned. Then I lit the bomb and threw it straight at the bugs head.

The damn bug was faster than I thought.

It spun around on the spot and sliced the projectile in two with a simple flick of its arm.

Unfortunately for it, the bomb detonated just as it sliced through the glass.

The Molotov exploded with enough force to send the pokémon flying back. It screeched as burning hot glass pierced and peppered its body. Fire consumed it, even as it screamed and tried to fan away the fire. Luckily for it the sprinklers above it activated, cooling it quickly and leaving it a charred – though alive – mess on the floor.

The security guard had leapt around at the sound of his scyther leaping into action. Xander knocked his weapon out of his hand with a pinpoint blast of water just before he too was thrown backwards by the force of the explosion. He fell backwards and hit his head hard enough on the floor to make me wince. I doubted he'd be getting up from that, if not for a while then not at all.

"That was accidental," I told Xander. He gave me a condescending look and hopped forwards, spraying the burnt scyther with ice-cold water. I couldn't even tell from the pokémon's moans whether it was helping or hurting it.

"We should move," I said quickly. My wrist was throbbing like mad and my ribs were hurting enough to cripple me. If it wasn't for the adrenaline rushing through me, I'd have probably been on the floor in agony. "People will have heard that, they'll be coming."

He didn't even make a sound as he followed behind me. I knew Loki would have heard all the noise we made. He wouldn't stray from getting to cause property damage though. He knew what he had to do; destroy the computers, then get to the roof. He could walk through walls; I wasn't worried about him.

Xander and I?

I was a little bit more worried about us.

The plans ran through my mind. End of the corridor I was racing through, take a right then another and I'd find myself at the stairs to the roof. Adryan would be up there.

I glanced at my watch.

Less than two minutes on Adryan's assumption.

I smirked and willed my legs to run a bit faster. I wanted to beat his little countdown, if only to rub it in a little. Pain was threatening to double me over and every step was a fight to stay upright.

I had to stop to catch my breath after the first right. It hurt too much to keep running. The escape was less than a minute away.

"I'll be right behind you," I told Xander and nodded for him to keep moving. He gave me a sharp, concerned look but took off regardless.

Once he was out of the way I slid down the wall and breathed a bit harder, fighting the pain through my body. I had to grit my teeth and force myself to stand back up, warring against my own body the whole way.

Finally I was victorious.

I was just about to race for the exit when I caught sight of the room opposite me.

It was a store room.

Filled to the brim with painkillers and other drugs.

My body was torn. I wanted nothing more than to raid it, to rid my body of the pain I was feeling. My elbow itched once more and my mouth went dry, all fighting for attention, begging me to fall back into old habits.

It was hard enough when I didn't have anything on me to take.

Seeing it in front of me was so much worse.

I managed to step away, only to step back again. It was like I was fighting an uphill battle.

I couldn't fall back down there again. It would make all my hard work be for nothing. I'd trusted Scar to look out for me too – the last time he'd just broken the needle and jammed it into my arm. I didn't want to think of what he'd do if I used again.

The thought was enough to turn the tide. I took a deep breath and moved to the exit.

Then someone pressed a gun in the back of my skull.

"Don't move asshole," he growled at me. My hands rose in surrender of their own accord, even as my mind raced for a way to get out of the situation.

"Drop your gun."

I tried my best to glare behind my back. "Drop yours first."

He managed a small laugh. "Let's get one thing straight; I'm not a cop. I don't have to take you in alive. If you try anything, I _will_ kill you."

That hit me like a hammer.

"So what's stopping you?" I taunted. I figured my only option was to keep stalling and maybe Xander would come back searching for me. Or perhaps Loki would somehow come across us. If neither of those, then maybe I could get him to lower his guard long enough to take him down.

"Lawsuits mainly. Apparently people care if little druggies like you are killed when they're trying to get a fix."

His words hit a nerve. I tried to spin round to face him, only for him to smack me in the back of the head with his gun. I went down like a sack of bricks and caught the floor with my hands. "I'm not a druggie," I hissed at him.

"_Right_," he drawled. "So I just imagined you were drooling over those drugs just then." I heard him put his gun away. Before I could make a move he yanked me up by my arms, twisted them up my back and sent pain lancing through them and my ribs both. "All this effort to score a fix? Who you working with?" He shook me with each question, my ribs screaming protest all the while.

"Do one," I growled.

Then I smashed my head into his face.

He cursed and dropped me to the floor. I kicked him in the shin as I fell and clamoured for my dropped gun. He reacted faster than I thought. I didn't even have time to blink before he kicked me in the ribs hard enough to make one crack. I couldn't stop the shout of pain that came out.

It was agony to crawl to my gun after that. I managed to grab it and point it at him in the time it took him to train his own gun back on me.

"That was stupid, kid." Blood streamed out of his nose and covered his chin. His whole face was contorted into anger and his gun was pointed straight between my eyes.

My wrist shook as it struggled with the weight of the gun. Each breath I took sent white-hot needles of pain dancing up my body. He saw the way I tried not to hunch over and smirked.

"Do you even know how to use that thing? You're shaking that much you can't even aim straight."

I glowered at him. "At this distance I don't need to aim perfectly. You kneecaps, stomach or between your legs. I shoot and one of them's going to take a bullet. You might not die, but you'll be in agony regardless."

He sighed. "You're just a kid. You shouldn't be doing this. Give yourself up, alright? I don't wanna shoot you, but I will if I have to. And if you don't give yourself up now, your pokémon might be caught in the cross fire."

It felt like I'd been dropped in ice-cold water. My stomach exploded with fear and anger both. My body betrayed my brain's wish to glance back and see if Xander was okay. I told myself he was bluffing; he had no clue that I had any pokémon on me. His only indication was the destroyed security station downstairs.

I smirked and pulled myself to my feet slowly, gun trained on the man all the while. "I don't have any pokémon, any accomplices or anyone else. Just me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked, then waved a hand.

There were loud footsteps behind me. I craned my head enough to see a hulking figure with purple, veiny skin carrying what seemed to be a syringe in one hand. In its other, held against its chest and by the throat… was Xander.

I started without meaning to.

"Not got any pokémon with you, huh?" the security guard taunted me. My head snapped back towards him and anger began to cloud my vision. He seemed to catch on immediately.

"I wouldn't shoot if I were you. That liquid in my machoke's hand? It's concentrated water stone. You know what happens if a pokémon that evolves from radiation by a water stone completely exposed to one, right? Imagine what happens if it's injected."

I shook my head and felt my stomach leave me. "You're lying," I accused. "There's no such thing."

He gave a little shrug. "Believe what you want. But do you really want to risk it? Shoot me and your lombre gets liquid water stone injected into its vein. Shoot my pokémon and I'll blow your brains out. Drop your gun and everyone goes away unharmed."

I couldn't give myself up. I had to complete a goal. I couldn't tell the man that I was needed to save the world – he'd never believe it. Who knew what would happen if I got arrested – I was from the future, there wasn't anything that said I actually existed."

I was torn.

I glanced at Xander, hoping he'd have a plan. He stared back at me and I caught sight of the little genius-smirk he'd been wearing so much.

He had a plan.

I couldn't let him down.

I sighed. "Alright."

And I pulled the trigger.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion.

The bullet slammed through the security guard's neck, spraying blood everywhere.

I fell to the floor as he fired back.

My arm exploded in pain as his bullet skimmed the top of it, taking an inch of flesh with it. He dropped his gun and gripped his neck, trying to stop the blood.

I spun around to see Xander enact his plan.

Instead I saw the syringe plunge into his neck and the liquid get injected.

It was like time started moving again. I screamed and fired my gun at the machoke. The bullet shattered its kneecap and dropped it to the floor. Another bullet took its brain and its life.

"Xander?" I shouted at my pokémon. He fell to the floor with a horrible scream, his skin bubbling and mutating before my very eyes. Bones were sprouting out of his body in places they shouldn't have been. Blood began leaking out of his nose, his ears, his eyes… _everywhere_. I couldn't tell what was Xander anymore and what was just a lump of mutated flesh.

"No, no, no!" I wailed as I gripped my pokémon and tried to figure out what I could do.

His screams were horrible. He sounded like he was in so much pain. And I knew there was nothing to do to help him.

Then he stopped breathing.


	45. Consequences

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Consequences**

* * *

_Don't wait. The time will never be just right _~ Napoleon Hill

**-O-O-O-**

"_You must always remember; when you take action, you can never take it back."_

- Anon. (Unknown date)

**-O-O-O-**

I wasn't certain whether the screaming had stopped or if I just couldn't hear it anymore. Bones grew out of Xander in all the places they shouldn't have. I could see the entire evolution happening before my very eyes. It looked like _torture._

I tried my best to pick him up. He hissed at me and tried to bite my hands. The tiny effort of moving caused him even more pain. Whether or not he tried to attack me, he was still my pokémon – I couldn't let him keep suffering. I scooped him up into my arms and ignored the pain of my own injuries. He seemed to realise it was me but he still pressed down hard against my chest. It was like he was trying to force the pain out of his head or something.

I didn't think long on the subject. I knocked through the door side-first and raced up the stairs to the roof. Two steps in and I could hear Loki's distant chattering and Adryan's attempts to quiet the sableye.

In any other situation I would have laughed.

Adryan saw me coming before I even had to announce my presence to him. His face lit up in glee before he saw my own appearance and the current state of my pokémon.

"What happened?" he asked as he tried to touch Xander. The lombre hissed at the touch and tried to fight him off.

"Water stone," I breathed. I felt little bits of water splash against my chest and wondered just when I'd started crying. The thoughts died quickly under the urgency of what was happening though. "Someone… somehow, they had a liquid form."

"_Liquid_ water stone?" Adryan gaped at me. "They're testing those? Dad said they were still in the design phase."

"I don't give a shit about design phases!" I snapped at him. "Xander's hurt! He needs a pokémon centre! I can't even recall him and stop this from happening to him!"

Xander screamed again. It tore my heart in two. He doubled over and vomited all over my boots. I tried my best to pat his back, but I didn't know where I could put my hands without causing him any pain.

"Dammit!" Adryan cursed. "Alright," he said quickly. "Ripper, teleport us three to the pokémon centre in Sootopolis. Irenui, look after Loki while we're gone."

I didn't even see what the flygon did in reply. There was just the feeling of falling through the floor and then people screaming as lights burst into existence around us.

There was a man in green scrubs that ran towards me instantly. "Oh my god," he breathed. "What happened here?"

"Water stone," I said, panicked. The nurse nodded and gestured for a stretcher to be brought out. He asked as many questions as he could while leading me towards the operating room.

I didn't hear any of his questions. I was vaguely aware of Adryan answering the question as best as he could. All I could see was Xander's face flashing agony with every step I took.

Finally the stretcher came. The nurse tried taking Xander out of my arms but again the lombre just hissed at the intrusion. I placed him down on the stretcher as gently as I could and watched him being carted away from me. I started after him, only for the nurse to hold out an arm.

"You can't come any further," he told me. "Get yourself cleaned up." It was only then I realised what a state I was in – covered in blood and who knew what else. "We'll let you know when you can see your pokémon."

Adryan grabbed me before I could swing for the man and tell him exactly what I thought of being separated from my pokémon. "Get yourself cleaned up," he told me, his voice quiet and strained. "I'll send Ripper back for Irenui and Loki, then they can help him find the rest of your pokémon."

I gave a small nod. I hated myself for turning away from my pokémon but knew it had to be done. I walked on autopilot towards the bathrooms and managed to clean most of the blood off my body.

Seeing it staining the sink and water red was surreal. I'd forgotten how many times I'd washed blood off my hands or my clothes, but I'd never been so affected by it. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to burst into tears then and there.

I think I shrunk my clothes by using the hand dryer to dry them. At the time I didn't care. I made my way back to the waiting room like a zombie and found Loki already there. He raced at me, clutched at my leg and chattered little upset sounds into my body.

I bent down and scooped him up. "I don't know," I told him. "I don't know if Xander's going to be alright."

* * *

One of the other nurses in the pokémon centre saw the state I was in and forcibly dragged me after her. She put quick bandages around my ribs, a simple cast on my wrist and gave me some ointment for my ear. She told me that I'd have to go to a hospital to get myself fully checked out, to make sure the bones healed properly and my ear didn't become infected.

I remember giving her a tiny shrug and a non-committed thanks. She made me promise her I'd do so before she quickly took off to her rounds.

My pokémon were all in the centre by the time I was done. Ripper looked exhausted and floated in a dark corner of the room – it looked like he'd attacked the light to give himself some shadows. Ayd seemed to be apologising to someone that worked there about his pokémon's actions while some of my pokémon nearly broke my bones even further as they leapt at me.

I found myself with Erra attached to my head and Loki again to my leg. Scar and Lacey both remained a little bit more distant, gave me a once-over and then exchanged little grunts. Gemini was just sat down in a corner near Irenui while Alistair looked like he was about to chop a nurse's head off.

_[They will not allow admittance to see Xander, sir,]_ he told me as I pulled him away from the person. _[What manner of fiend are they, that they won't let a comrade see his brother-in-arms?]_

"I don't like it any more than you do, Alistair," I told him. "But it's to make sure the operating rooms remain uncontaminated. Otherwise Xander could get infected by whatever disease we might bring in with us."

_[That is entirely unreasonable!]_ he protested.

_[Deal with it,]_ Gemini muttered at us both. _[Humans have their rules, as we have our own. Let them tend to the lombre. If you distract them from their duty, the lombre's life force may dwindle even more.]_

"'Dwindle'?" I echoed, panicked. "What do you mean 'dwindle'?" I yelled at her. She snorted and turned her head away from me, refusing to say anything more. It was Scar who pulled me away from her, shaking his head and growling little notes.

"Don't let your pokémon start a fight," Adryan warned me. "Don't start one yourself. The pokémon centres are on edge since all the poké balls stopped working. They're becoming overcrowded. The slightest thing now and they're likely to kick you out."

"They'd kick me out, even while my pokémon's undergoing treatment?" I glared at the people working in the centre, _daring_ them to try to remove me. It wouldn't end well for them.

"Just… try to relax," Adryan said. "As stupid an idea that sounds. We could be here for a while."

* * *

I was vaguely aware that night had settled. There were less people storming into the centre and less general chatter. Alistair was still pacing up and down the waiting room with Erra on his shoulder. Gemini was curled up in a corner, sleeping or meditating, with Loki snoozing atop her back. Lacey had disappeared at some point while Scar remained by my side the whole while.

I blinked blearily and stared at the charmeleon until my eyes focused. He glanced towards his shoulder, blew a little breath on it and evaporated the little stream of saliva I'd left there.

I blinked at him again, barely even aware that I'd fallen asleep. I felt like I hadn't slept in years. He gave a little growl and slapped the top of my arm.

"I'm awake," I muttered as I rubbed my eyelids. "What's the time?"

He gave a little snort. The reason slowly dawned on me.

"So maybe I'm not _totally _awake, considering how I'm asking a charmeleon for the time." I glanced at the clock and took a moment to register the time. "They've been in there for eight hours," I whispered. Part of me was amazed that they could work for so long on one operation. The other part of me was performing as many fearful prayers as I could possibly think of.

I don't know how long I waited there. Time just seemed irrelevant and never ending.

It was _horrible._

Finally someone came to speak to me. I don't remember much of what they looked like – my mind was all a blur and I could barely register anything that was going on.

Then he delivered the news that shattered my psyche completely.

"I'm… sorry."

Two words that broke my brain completely.

I remember him saying something about the damage being too great. About how even though he was still alive, a bone had grown wrong and gone through his brain. Another had pierced his lungs.

They said it was better to put him to sleep.

My brain scattered into a variety of different places after that.

I remember being in the room with Xander. I think my other pokémon were there too. I remember the sterile smell and the sight of Xander lying there on the metal table.

I could barely recognise him under all the mutation. Blood and bone still stained most of his skin.

People always said that when someone died, they would look at peace.

I couldn't tell with Xander. His eyes were still scrunched shut, like even after he'd died he was still in pain.

I think I managed to hold in the tears until the doctor left us alone with Xander's body.

They said something about what I wanted done with the body. I didn't have a clue. I had no idea about any of it. All my other dead pokémon didn't exactly have bodies to bury. The wurmple was torn to shreds by Loki. The makuhita was abandoned in my haste to get away from the shedinja. Sophie was just obliterated.

Words and speech became jumbled nonsense. I managed to nod when they said something about cremation. I heard them say something about doing it when I was ready.

When would I ever be ready to do that to my pokémon?

I think I stayed there for a while, convinced he was going to wake up. That all the mutation was nothing more than an elaborate prank him and Loki had cooked up.

It never happened.

I think I left when they told me I couldn't stay in the room any longer. I would have argued it… but I was just so broken. Everything was a haze. Nothing made sense – everything I saw, I forgot again moments later.

I made it back into the reception room. Adryan was fast asleep atop his flygon, Ripper floating nearby. The dusknoir loomed over to us and I felt a whispered condolence touch my ears.

I wondered how he knew. Belatedly I realised dusknoir knew about the passage of spirits from one life to the next.

"You… you knew this was going to happen, didn't you?" I asked him. He said nothing. He just floated there, his single eye boring into my face and through the other side of my skull.

Even I could figure out the silence was him trying not to confirm it.

I didn't have the energy to accuse him of anything. I knew he should have warned me about something – if he knew when things were meant to pass on, the least he could have done was warn people.

It was like my brain already knew how ridiculous such a statement was. All I could manage was a barely coherent, "Huh."

That simple grunt seemed to be a massive trigger.

Suddenly Alistair whirled around on me and pinned me to the wall. His bladed elbow dug into my throat hard enough to draw blood as he dug his other hand's claws into my cheek.

_[You betrayed him.]_

My thoughts were barely coherent. "It needed to be done," I whispered. "I don't like it either, but it was that or making him suffer."

_[Not that,]_ Alistair growled. I saw my other pokémon move to try and help me, yet a single glare from the gallade seemed to put most of them in their places. The ones that weren't deterred by his glare were separated as a blue barrier sprung into existence around us.

_[You had the choice; to give yourself up and save him, or to do exactly as you did.]_

"Xander had a plan!" I growled at the gallade. I didn't have the patience to go through such a conversation. Especially not then. "I saw him – he gave me that smirk he wore every time he had a plan!"

Alistair pushed me a little further into the wall. _[He was attempting to tell you to give up, sir. His plan was to act after he was freed.]_

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

Then I _was_ punched in the stomach. Alistair doubled me over and sliced my cheek with one of his blades. He threw me to the floor and just glared at me as I pressed a hand over my bleeding cheek.

_[You chose yourself over another. Another that put his trust entirely in you.] _He moved towards the doors but stopped just a pace away from them. _[Do you wish to know what his last thoughts were? 'Why? Was I not good enough? How-]_

"Shut _up!_" I snarled at him. "You think you're so high and mighty, huh? Berating me because I made a choice that didn't end well? _I can't read minds!_ I don't know what people or pokémon are thinking! I have to make choices on what I _know_, not what I can see in other people's minds!"

He gave a little shrug. _[You proved who you really are today. You care not for the welfare of your comrades. You are neither a good trainer nor a good friend. I cannot and _will_ not work with someone like you. Farewell sir – try not to kill anyone else.]_

With a little hum of the automatic doors, he disappeared.

And just like that, he was gone.

The blue barrier between me and the rest of my pokémon disintegrated. Scar growled at the doors and moved to chase after the gallade. I called him off and just sat there, stunned.

I couldn't say anything, because deep down I figured it was all true.

Four dead pokémon. The rest were all some form of psychotic. The only pokémon around me that wasn't insane didn't even belong to me.

It summed up my ability as a trainer.

* * *

It was dark, early morning when I got Xander's ashes. I remember scattering them in the sea. I had no idea what to do with them, truth be told. I just figured that he liked water. I wanted him to be able to be around it all the time. Hoenn was almost entirely islands built on one large, warm ocean. If his spirit lived on then at least in a way, he'd always be with me.

Those weren't my thoughts at the time.

Instead I focused on how unfair it was. I seethed at everything. Flailing between hatred for myself and hatred for the people that did what they did to Xander, I devised a plan. It was anything but smart. Yet I figured that if I could complete it, there might be a slim chance I'd feel even a margin better.

I sat there for a while as I formulated the plan. My pokémon were around me, silent in the darkness. I had no idea where Adryan was – I hadn't paid much attention to him. I think he was still asleep at the time. I didn't want to wake him. He wouldn't like my plan. I couldn't deal with anyone that was going to tell me what to or what not to do.

I wondered idly how Alistair had managed to vanish from Sootopolis. The entire place was built in the remains of an old volcano. Water filled up a large portion of the inside, with the outside covered in crags and dangerous inclines. The only way in or out was by boat, by flight or through the ocean. I guessed that somehow he'd managed to teleport out.

He said his psychic abilities were poor. I figured they had to be good enough to teleport – even if he could only warp himself.

I turned my thoughts away from him. He'd abandoned me. Left me after everything.

I was mostly annoyed with myself. Annoyed that I couldn't blame him. Annoyed that on some level, I thought him right.

I gathered up a handful of sand in my hand and crushed it as hard as I could with a fist. "Fuck this," I growled as I stood. "I can't stand this waiting around. I need to do something. Xander's dead. That place is still standing. After what they did to him, it doesn't deserve to be there anymore."

My pokémon all shot me the same glance. Surprise, alarm… disbelief. But I could see it in all their faces; they'd follow me through with my plan. We all seemed to share the idea. One of our own had been taken.

It was just Gemini that remained slightly off to the side. She stared at the soft reflection of the moon in the water.

_[This course of action is foolish,]_ she muttered into my mind. _[What good will become of your plan?]_

I spun round to glare at her. "All good will come of it! We'll feel better and they'll know not to pull shit like that again! That place is still standing Gemini. Who knows what's in there that we didn't destroy. Adryan's dad would only know so much. I doubt Adryan had any idea of what was _really_ going on in there. He didn't know anything about them having liquidated radiation stones!

"If they have those," I said with a dark look, "what else could they have? It's best just to make sure the whole place goes up in a big bang."

_[You just want revenge.]_

"So?" I snapped. "You're not one to lecture me about wanting that! Yes, I want revenge. But look what they've done so far! Hospitalised – _killed_ – people. Civilians! They let loose toxins on whole _towns _of people!"

Gemini gave a derisive snort. _[Whatever helps you feel better about this. I see no reason for me to lend my abilities, however. It seems like there is nothing that would benefit me from this little excursion you have planned.]_

I figured that she would have wanted convincing. Luckily my brain had already developed the perfect reason for her to come along. I wasn't certain if it was true or not. I didn't care, as long as it got me what I wanted.

"Just think about it Gemini," I said. "This is what I was meant to do. That stupid pokémon brought me back here for a reason. Maybe more. This is probably one of many reasons it brought me here for. If I do so, it could very well show up afterwards."

I didn't know her well, but I could see the flicker of intrigue in her eyes.

_[And if this is not what you were tasked to do?]_

I shrugged. "Then it'll probably appear afterwards anyway, just to bitch at me or throw me back on course. Either way, it's likely to appear if we do this."

She wittered something I couldn't understand. Finally she sighed. _[Very well. I shall aide you in this.]_

"Good." I gave her a curt nod and glanced at my team. Most of them had turned back to the water. Where what remained of Xander had been laid to rest.

Alistair may have been right. I might not have been a good trainer. But I promised myself that I'd make damn sure I'd become one after doing what I had planned.

It wasn't until later that I realised I was effectively going on a suicide run. My starter was dead and with it, so was most of my resolve.

I sometimes wonder if everything would have turned out for the better, had I been successful in my suicide mission.

* * *

When I got back to the pokémon centre Adryan was already awake. He seemed to be talking to his dusknoir as I walked in. As soon as Adryan noticed me, he spun around and offered me a sympathetic look.

I couldn't see any of the pokémon centre staff about. Instantly I knew that Ripper was behind it all. I shot the pokémon a betrayed look as his trainer made his way to me.

"I'm sorry," Adryan whispered.

There was a lot of effort in stopping myself from glaring at him. "I'm fine," I muttered instead.

"Okay," he said, unsure. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," I said quickly. "You can teleport me back to that place."

He was confused for a moment. "Why would you-" surprise and alarm dawned on his face. "No," he said with a wave of both hands. "No way pal. I can't let you do what you're thinking of."

I did glare at him then. "How would you even _begin_ to understand how I'm feeling?"

"I've lost pokémon too, remember?" he said in a whisper. "It's hard, yeah. But you can't go take revenge on an entire complex of people because of this."

My glare got a bit harsher. "Why not? You would."

He paled visibly and lowered his voice to a whisper. "The people that did it, yeah. But I wouldn't go on a massacre just because one of my pokémon died! Sure it hurts, but you deal with this pain! Killing others won't make it better!"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "It'd make me forget for a bit. Besides, _you_ didn't know about there being any liquidised water stones. Your dad didn't mention anything about that now, did he?"

Ayd looked away sheepishly. "No, but I checked-"

"How could _you_ check?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "I just thought I knew everything I could."

I threw him a condescending look. "It wasn't _you_ that found this information out though, was it? It was your dad. They had stuff he didn't know about. Who else knows what they've got there."

He tried to level me with a resolute face. Instead it crumbled and dropped into one of reluctant agreement. "Fine, you're right. But we should warn them beforehand or something. Let the people get out."

"And what, let them run away with everything they know?" I laughed scornfully. "No. They know about it, they can do it again. Acceptable losses. Kill a few to save more. It's the way it has to be."

All humour vanished from his face. "You've changed."

"My starter just died," I said, completely deadpan. "And I'm just changing back. This is how I used to be. This is the person that got things done."

"You can't," he protested. "There's people in there. _Innocent _people!" He saw the look I gave him and understood I was going to do it with or without his consent. "Don't," he pleaded more than asked. "Don't go this far. If you leave for that place, I'll warn them. Tip them off that a terrorist attack is gonna happen."

I felt a little pang of hurt that he'd betray me in such a way. But really, I could understand. I couldn't blame him for wanting to save people. In my own way, I wanted to save people. I was just more realistic about it.

"I don't care," I said with a shrug. "You won't know what day I'm planning to do anything. I could _do_ anything. Go in there myself and plant nailbombs. Find the virus they've been infecting everyone with and let it loose on them. I could just capture a rattata, strap a bomb to its back and send it at all the gas tanks."

Adryan sighed then finally glanced up at a little light on the ceiling. "You realise there's security cameras recoding everything we're saying right now, right?"

I flipped off the camera carelessly. "I don't give a fuck. Future-boy here, remember? I don't exist. You? You exist." I smirked and waved at him as I turned to leave. "Better find that footage Adryan. Wouldn't want them to see that you're involved in something like this."

I felt the doors of the pokémon centre close behind me. Cool, crisp air touched my face. The sun was slowly rising in the distance, basking the island in orange light.

All my bravado vanished. I hated myself for manipulating Adryan like that. I shouldn't have ever gotten him involved. All it resulted in was the pain of giving him my memories, a dead rapidash and now him being an accomplice in acts of terrorism. Add to that, my manipulation to make him steal security footage from a pokémon centre.

I extinguished all the compassion that burnt within me. It needed to be done. Xander was dead. I'd changed nothing. That was how far I'd managed to get by adjusting to the current world. It was time for me to see how well my soldier training would do.

* * *

It took four days by boat to get to Lilycove. Along the way, I spoke to Mia a little. She'd been training at Mount Pyre for a little while and set up a memorial to her other pokémon. She mentioned that her appointment had been delayed for a week. She said it was something to do with them upgrading security measures.

I didn't know whether that was thanks to me or Adryan. All I knew was that the police would be a bit more on the ball. Doubtless the lab already had security footage of me. It wouldn't be long before they'd be able to tie me to everything I'd done.

I told myself I'd do this act of future-saving terrorism, then hide for a while.

I didn't pay much attention to Lilycove. I just spent most of my time training my pokémon. About two day's worth of training passed and I still had no idea what I was going to do to enact my plan – I'd just make it up on the spot. There was little point planning things if they could all change at the last minute.

I was just happy none of my other pokémon evolved from the radiation. I considered that Lacey may be slightly in danger, given that her species evolved from them. A quick conversation with Gemini reassured me otherwise – apparently once fully evolved, they were immune to its effects, both positive and negative.

I couldn't help but wish I'd kept a water stone around. Maybe then I wouldn't have been in such a situation.

I told myself it was too late for regrets.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it as best I could. I figured it would probably only be Ayd trying to put me off what I had to do. It needed to be done, he just didn't seem to realise that.

It took me just over an hour on the trains to reach the edge of Lilycove. It was cramped with all my pokémon, but the trainer-specific trains were built with large pokémon in mind, so it seemed. Another hour's walk brought me to the damned place that killed Xander.

I approached it as stealthily as I could and found an increase in security instantly. Two security guards outside the front doors. Another one that I could see on the roof. The wear in the flowers and grass around the building told me they made regular trips around the building.

They had to be hiding something. It was a bit much for somewhere that was just meant to be curing stillbirths.

"We won't be able to get in through the front," I whispered to my pokémon. Scar and Lacey both crouched by my side. Erra was sat on my shoulder, Loki by my leg and Gemini was squatting down a little distance behind us.

Scar growled, nudged me in the side and pointed forwards.

I followed his gaze and nodded. "Yeah, we'll sneak round the side. We'll double round – go a little distance away and come back." I glanced as best I could at the magnemite on my shoulder. "Erra, reckon you can find the electric lines under the ground?"

She gave a weak little buzz. It was enough for me to understand.

"The gas pipes will be nearby. I can lay a charge on them. A few around the building at key points." I stopped, scratched my chin and thought it all. "If I throw something flammable… Scar, do you think you can set fire to something on the second floor?"

He growled a little confirmation.

It was good. My whole plan was coming together.

"Gemini, you guard Erra," I hissed. "Loki, you stick with me during this. Lacey, stay with Scar. Make sure you all stay out of sight."

The entire place was going to pay for what they did.

Screw the civilian casualties. If they could warn anyone, it could let people get away with the information they had. I couldn't let that happened.

And if anyone tried to stop me… I looked forward to the thought.

I focused on my anger the whole way through. Everything became meaningless. I remember skulking around the building with Loki, hiding a few little bombs around the building. It was remarkable how much could be used for such a thing in these times.

I worked quickly. I barely even remember everything. It was like one minute I was getting ready to set everything up, the next I was back with my pokémon.

Erra found the power lines pretty easily. I had Scar dig a little pit until we found them. Pipes that contained gas were nearby. I placed another little charge on top of it and had Scar relay the dirt.

It was all too easy.

Nothing was going wrong.

I didn't think anything bad of it.

A few bombs laid around the building at its obvious structural weak points. Each with a cheap, disposable phone attached to explosive packs. One little text to each would set them all off.

The building would collapse on itself.

I moved us all a distance away. Lacey kept an eye on the building to make sure nothing was discovered. Half a mile away, the building was still in full view.

I held out a little flask I'd filled with petrol. It was amazing how quickly I was able to sort everything out; how my brain and body had seemed to work on autopilot to get everything sorted.

"Gemini," I said as I held it in front of her. "Can you shoot this into the window there?" I didn't even look at her as I pointed at the window. It was the one near a lab. I recalled the outside view when I was in there.

_[Of course I can.]_

"Good," I said and dropped the flask. She caught it with psychic powers immediately. It floated beside me by an invisible force. It was almost eerie.

"When you're ready," I said. "Scar, set it aflame when you can. Gemini; control the explosion until it gets through the window."

It took three seconds for Scar to set the petrol aflame.

Another second for it to smash through the window and blow the entire room apart.

Two seconds later, all the bombs I'd set went off.

I watched with a grim smile as the place exploded in front of me. The top of the building collapsed on itself. People screamed. The place burnt. No one escaped.

I watched the place burn for a little while. No one ever came out. One or two of the security guards ran in and tried to rescue survivors. Gemini let me know everyone they brought out was dead.

Adryan was wrong.

Revenge felt good.

I turned away from the place and smiled at my pokémon. "Come on guys," I said. "We should disappear for a little bit."

They grunted alongside me. We all seemed to share the same grim elation in getting revenge on the place that took Xander from us.

Out of curiosity I flipped open my phone. I'd have to ditch it soon anyway – why not see what my last message was, I asked myself.

It wasn't from Adryan. That wasn't what I expected. Instead it was from Mia.

I found my voicemail and waited for it to load.

I'd never have expected what message she said.

"_Hey it's Mia. Guess you're busy… I should have known really, but I just wanted to talk to someone. My appointment for that stupid consultation's today. But… I dunno. I'm still confused as to everything. I guess I'll find out after I've chatted to them. I'll ring you afterwards though, let you know what I'm going to do. Just… thanks, you've been a real friend during all of this. My appointment thing's at half two, so I guess I'll be done by three. Speak to you then?"_

The message stopped there.

So did my heartbeat.

Mia was going for an appointment _that day!_ An appointment with Pathornogix.

The same place I'd just blown up.

I checked my watch.

Fourteen hundred thirty-five.

My heart stopped again.

She was in there!

I swayed on the spot and dropped flat on my backside. My pokémon stopped and glanced at me in concern. I just stayed there, numb, staring at my phone.

It couldn't be true!

My hands were shaking as I dialled Mia's number and pressed the phone to my ear.

There was nothing. No dial tone, no nothing.

She was in that building.

She was dead.

I'd killed her.

Adryan was right. Revenge didn't make me feel any better.

Revenge cost me one of my best friends.


	46. Pretence

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Pretence  
**

* * *

_Forever and ever, the scars will remain  
I'm falling apart  
Leave me here forever in the dark _~ Benjamin Burnley

**-O-O-O-**

"_For better or worse, death will change you. Although your own will only result in you decaying."_

- Anon. (Unknown date)

**-O-O-O-**

"_Police are still investigating the terrorist explosion that occurred in a Pathorgonix facility near Lilycove City in Hoenn. For now, they believe that the culprits are a team of individuals seeking revenge for the Hoenn assassination of Aaron Mattheis, an assassination which they still vehemently deny._

"_Following our report is a list of names released by the Hoenn government, detailing the names of those killed and identified in this act, with permission of the local authorities and the respective families. At the moment, it is believed that there were no survivors."_

I pulled my coat up around myself as I watched the news report. It took a little while, but I saw it there, in black and white.

Mia-Louise Lawson.

One of the casualties.

One of my best friends.

Killed by my hand.

I sighed and watched my breath turn to fog, even inside the pokémon centre. I knew it was risky being there, but I figured a different country wouldn't have police looking for me.

It turned out Sinnoh was, in fact, cold enough for me to like. Snowpoint City held colder temperatures than I'd ever encountered. While I might not have been able to run around in a tank top in the snow, I still relished the lack of heat blazing down on me from above.

Three weeks had passed since I blew up the labs. It took me three days to escape Hoenn. I snuck on a transport ship from Lilycove and spent the next few days hiding in amidst the cargo, hiding from as many people as I could.

It was hard to hide my pokémon too, but somehow, we managed it.

The boat arrived in Canalave. From there I caught another boat up towards Snowpoint. It was the most remote part of Sinnoh that still had a civilisation to it.

Two weeks after I'd blown up the labs, the problem with the poké balls had been fixed. There still was no official statement as to what went wrong. They released a new line of poké balls that supposedly couldn't be broken in the same way. They charged five times the normal price for each ball.

People were whispering it was a government conspiracy to make more money out of the trainers.

I had other thoughts about it. The girl from Fallarbor claimed to be from the future too. The infamous kid with the girafarig – Gemini's offspring – had been too.

I figured poké balls breaking world-wide had to be something to do with a celebi. I wanted –_needed_- to find out what the creatures had been planning.

Gemini snorted a little by my side. _[Three weeks and we have not seen a flicker of what we hunt.]_

I shot her a glare and tucked my hands under my armpits. "We'll find it. We've searched the forests here. It's not here. It hasn't been here yet. We know it travels to forests – it visited Lacey's old clan before. That damned thing has known every step I'd make so far. If we're here, it would have visited the pokémon here. So we find out what group it visited."

Her ears flicked at me. _[And if it hasn't visited any of these pokémon?]_

I shrugged as best I could. "Then either it hasn't been here yet, or something's lying. If the former; we wait it out. If the latter; we find out just _why_ they'd need to lie about it."

She appeared pleased by my answer. I waited until my other pokémon were fully healed and retrieved them off the nurse at the desk. There were hushed whispers as I turned away and left.

Every day I went back to the pokémon centre, with my pokémon all in various states of exhaustion. The younger trainers all thought I was abusing my pokémon. The older ones saw what I was doing and pretended not to notice.

Pushing your pokémon as hard as you could was one of the things people pretended didn't happen. They seemed too happy to go along with the idea that being friends with them and battling other pokémon helped them to grow.

It took hard work and graft to get results. The ones that realised it either quit being trainers and kept them as pets or pushed everyone to their limits. A few tried to continue training by being friends. More often than not, they all ended up dead.

Pushing them hard got results. Every trainer did so. They just all hid behind a cloud of friendship and camaraderie when they were in public. They ignored and whispered things about me because I didn't do that. I wanted results and I didn't care anything for maintaining an image.

After all, what was the point in making friends with them? With anyone? With no friends, there'd be no pain when they died. If my pokémon hated me, it just meant they wouldn't hurt if I eventually did die.

I got out of the town and into the snow-covered routes around it. Harsh blizzards were wrapping around the town and Snowpoint itself was nearly half covered in snow. I'd left Hoenn-summer for Sinnoh-winter.

Gemini wittered a little as she struggled to walk through the snow. I ignored her and carried on trudging through the freezing climate. She still refused to allow herself to be captured. It was her decision, so she could live with the consequences.

I was one to talk about that.

I stopped at a random point some distance from the town and let out Scar. Heat evaporated off him and melted some of the snow around his feet. Little bits of snow turned to water and then steam under the temperature of his tail.

There were little protrusions on his back, like bones slowly growing out of his skin. His wings were starting to grow. The horn on his head seemed to be splitting into two and slowly moving to his temples. It'd still take a few months, but he was beginning to become a charizard.

He looked at me.

I glared back at him.

He understood the message and set about his drills. Loki and Lacey fell into practiced habit almost instantly. Scar had become almost like the unofficial leader of them all. If he was training, they did so too. Lacey took a moment to adjust herself to the cold – even as she began running, I could see her still shivering.

I let out Erra last. Her front legs were growing into something resembling pincers. She was growing an extra wing on each side that I knew would have a single red eye pattern. It would make it look like there were three magnemites all stuck next to each other. There would still be a while until she became a magneton, but it would happen soon. The harsher drills were making them more powerful too – Erra had managed to take down an enraged piloswine on her own.

"You need to train too," I said to Gemini.

The girafarig stepped carefully through the snow and shot me a frustrated look. _[As I have continually told you; my skills in defensive abilities make this form of training useless.]_

I turned around and settled her with a flat look. "And as _I've_ told _you_; if you're part of this team, you train with them too. If something can shatter those barriers of yours and is resistant to your psychic attacks, you're pretty much dead. Now, _train."_

She snorted. _[I don't think so.]_

I snapped my gun out of my pocket, flicked the safety off and shot the ground right by her foot. She leapt nearly a foot into the air and glared back at me, her eyes shining bright blue.

_[__**Fool!**_] she shouted into my brain. _[How dare you!]_

I held her gaze and pointed the gun at her unflinchingly. "I told you to train."

Her front legs were spread wide, her back arched and her tail spitting venom. She was angry.

I was apathetic.

_[Do not think you can bully me into chasing invisible lines! I meditate and train my abilities! Your weapons have no use when I can crush your brain with a thought!]_

Her eyes were misting the psychic blue glow. In the wind it seemed like the light was leaking from her eyes and swirling around her. At any other time, I might have recoiled from the danger.

I was broken. I didn't care. If she did kill me, all she'd be doing would be ending my torment.

"Crush my brain then," I said without any bravado. "But the last thing I do will be put a bullet in your second head. Tell me; how well do girafarig function when their instincts are taken away?"

She didn't move an inch. _[You are as much a cretin as The Celebi.]_

"Train," I repeated emotionlessly. "You want to be strong enough to beat it? You get stronger. You think something that can _travel through time_ will be in danger from your barriers? You'll be lucky to get up a single one before it crushes _your_ brain."

Our standoff lasted another ten seconds. Then with a deep growl she stood back up, glow vanishing from her eyes. She held her head up high and tried to maintain all the dignity she had as she fell into line and started running drills alongside my other pokémon.

I watched them all for a moment. Running around in the snow would help them. Their leg muscles would get stronger – they'd be able to run faster after it all. Cold attacks would hurt them all less by being in such harsh climes. They might not like having to do it all, but it would make them all stronger.

They might not like me because of it, but it was the safest way. Compassion got you hurt. Compassion got you killed. It was safer - easier - with such methods.

My ears perked up at the sound of snow crunching underfoot. It was different to my pokémon's – slow, methodical, with purpose. Not that they didn't want me not to know they were there, but that they weren't afraid of what I could do.

I rolled my eyes and stuffed my hands into my pockets as I turned around. I only knew of one person in Sinnoh that could have such bravado – Candice.

Sure enough it was her walking towards me. Her black hair was pulled into two braids either side of her head and she wore a bright blue winter coat and snow shoes. Her legs were bare and almost the same colour as her clothes.

"I've been looking for you," she said.

I shrugged. "I've been avoiding you."

"Don't get funny with me! What do you think you're doing out here?"

Her face was nearly in mine. I shrugged again and turned to face the distance. "Training. What does it look like?"

"Torture."

I rolled my eyes again and glanced back at her. "Like you don't do anything similar. Look at you; out here with a miniskirt. Most people think you're an idiot. But you're training yourself, aren't you? The less you wear, the more you feel the cold. For someone that's ice-adapted, you can make yourself a lot more resistant to the cold temperature."

Her cheeks burnt red and she tried to hide her blue – nearly purple – legs under her coat. "So? That's just me, not my pokémon."

"Taking _icy_ pokémon into a sauna?" I asked her. "I might not know much about pampering, but I know that's near-torture for them. Your pokémon in that heat is just similar to my pokémon in this weather."

She started at that. "How did you-"

"Know?" I finished for her. I smirked and moved my hands from my pockets to my armpits. "People talk, Candice. Top trainers like those at the gym know how harsh training really has to be. Just because I'm upfront about it to the parents and kiddies that think it all to be sunshine and rainbows doesn't mean you can act like a hypocrite."

She blew out a breath and looked up at me. "You know what it's like. There wouldn't be nearly enough new trainers each year if they didn't think it was a good experience. It weeds out the strong from the weak."

I turned away from her with a scowl. "So what about everyone that dies then?"

I caught her shrug out of the corner of my eye. "The world's overpopulated. Surely you've noticed that. For every house, there's at least a hundred families. It's easier this way – more people become nomads, training and not needing somewhere permanent to live. The ones that die… well, they're not going to be making the overpopulation problems any worse, are they?"

"That's not the way most gym leaders think."

I heard the flick of a lighter and smelt the acrid smoke of a cigarette on the wind. "I'm not most gym leaders," she said. She took a drag and just stared at me. "And you're not a child trainer that sees the world through rose-tinted glasses. You're an adult – you know how the world _really_ works. If things were really good as the government claimed, would people like The Rockets and Team Galactic have been able to do what they did? Would the news currently be running such an anti-Hoenn propaganda fest?"

One of my eyebrows raised of its own accord. "So you've noticed that, huh?"

She snorted. "Me and every other gym leader in Sinnoh!" Second hand cigarette smoke blew over my back and acted like a brief gaseous, warm hug in the cold. "Hoenn has the largest amount of natural gas reserves under their country. Sinnoh has the most amount of fossils buried miles underground. Hoenn and Sinnoh have been trying to control the other for years now. It's all about money. Electric pokémon can only provide so much power."

I saw her knees constantly knocking together from the corner of my eye. I sighed and dug in my bag until I found a spare pair of insulated bottoms. "Here," I said and tossed them to her. "Put these on. You're not training much by standing still in this weather."

She barely managed to catch them with her free hand.

"So why's it all kicked off then?" I asked her.

"Aaron," she said with a shrug. "He was running recon in Hoenn. He could have had all the insects over there under his control. One day they all attack the populace. He gets called in to calm them all down, but as part of the bargain, Sinnoh gets a large hold over Hoenn's gas reserves." She took another pull of her cigarette and stepped closer to me. "It's all about money. The dark, seedy parts of government that no one wants anyone else to know."

I snorted. "And you know because?"

"Because I'm a gym leader," she said with a shrug. "We play a little bit of the politics game. While the government might have full control, they still need to run certain things past us. If we disagree, we can always just use our pokémon, start a rebellion and take control of parliament. It's a fine line we all tread on."

I sighed. "And there's only four official Elites in each country to keep everything in line, right?"

"Sort of," she said. "The officials aren't actually all native to their country. Take Sinnoh – we've got Bertha, who's native to Kanto and Aaron, who was from Johto. With our battle frontier, one of the leaders there was from Unova – she went back there when she got the job as an Elite over there."

I watched as she flicked her spent cigarette into the winds. It zoomed into the distance faster than I could follow it. "Then how many unofficial Elites does every country have?"

She shrugged. "As many as possible. It's like stockpiling for a war – you're going to want something powerful enough, if you ever need to use that. It's all just politics – they all smile and shake hands with each other as they hide a knife in their other hand."

I glanced back at my pokémon to make sure they were still running their drills. "So how comes you're telling me all of this?"

She sighed. "I'm a gym leader, it's my job to know all of this. And you're my best student. At this rate, you're gonna be in charge of your own gym soon enough. Once you get and train a specialised-type team."

I shrunk into myself and wondered if that would ever happen. If I was lucky, I wouldn't die, but I'd have to avoid Hoenn police for the rest of my life. If I wasn't, I'd just be dead… or something worse.

"Are you even listening to me, Warren?"

It took me a moment to register the name she'd used. Near Snowpoint, on my second day in Sinnoh, I'd found the remains of a man. He looked like he'd been gored by a mamoswine. In his pack were a few things, among them, an accepted application to work at Snowpoint's gym.

It took a lot of bluster and a number of lies, but I managed to bluff my way into getting a job there. I figured I'd be in Snowpoint for a while, waiting for the celebi. In the meantime, I realised I could probably help train myself by working with people that knew and understood the adaptation I shared with them.

A resistance to cold, the ability to see better during hailstorms and fog and the ability for my body to be more effective at storing and using the water it contained. It came with the downside of suffering heat more than most, being prone to having brittle bones and hurting more from any sort of physical blow.

It was all I'd learnt about my adaptations. But they'd taught me the best way to use them on a daily basis, as well as the best ways to cope in hot temperatures or in a fight.

"I want to recommend you to the League, to have your own gym," Candice continued. "You wouldn't get it for a few years, you'd have to pass a number of tests and maybe hold a champion title, but you've got some of the strongest pokémon I've seen. You've only got a half-adaptation, but you handle yourself far better than those that have the full adaptation. You think outside the box too; the league needs that.

"Part of the skillset required for being a leader is being able to handle dangerous situations. I don't know how, but you seem to have the mind-set of a soldier." I barely stopped a snort at that. "That you can break things down into the best way to attack them… that skill's needed. Too many people rely on one set of tactics or pure, dumb luck when they're battling. Most of them are even worse when they're presented with a real-life scenario."

I shrugged. "Maybe they're just too naïve to everything."

"Exactly!" She grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face her. "The exam yesterday? If a town came under attack from pokémon? Everyone else said they'd get people out of the town as quickly as possible and take a team of trainers to battle the pokémon. You're the only one who said to have some trainers guard the people, then arm everyone old enough with pokémon or weapons to defend themselves. That's why I say you're good for the job; because you understand that in a crisis, we're not the only chance of hope everyone has, no matter the public opinion."

I shrugged a little self-consciously. "It's just common sense."

"Common sense that none of my other students seem to have," she shot back. "Sure, you might not be the easiest person to talk to. Sure, you might act like a complete asshole to anyone, but I've seen you work with people. That kid that came in yesterday?"

I scratched my cheek and knew who she was talking about instantly. "The one with a psyduck he'd barely had for five minutes?"

Candice nodded. "Yeah, him. Anyone else would have taken him to one side, told him to train for a little while and then come back when he thinks he's strong enough. You didn't. You _showed_ him he wasn't strong enough, then told him in the nicest, bluntest way possible exactly what he was doing wrong and how he could improve."

I snorted. "And everyone hated me for it."

"But it gives the best results!" she said. "Think about it; if he'd been mollycoddled, he would have gone out, thinking he still had little work to do. You showed him exactly how harsh the world really is. Maybe he'll give up training. But if he doesn't, he knows now almost exactly what to expect. A gym leader has to do what needs doing, no matter what other people think. You're the only student I have who not only doesn't care what others think of him, but doesn't care what _I_ think of you."

I sighed and turned away from her. "Thanks, but, it just isn't gonna happen."

"Why?" she asked, spinning me to face her again. "Because your pokémon died?"

I flinched and glared back at her. "How?"

"Your application had a complete list of your current team," she said slowly. "Piloswine, delibird and a nearly-evolved sneasel." She raised an eyebrow and peeked around me to glance at my own team. "Call me crazy, but none of them look like any of those I just listed."

"Yeah," I mumbled, panicking slightly. "They died on the way. A few strokes of bad luck. This is the team I had in reserve; I thought I needed specialised pokémon to get the position."

She smiled. "Good thing your dad was available to get them back off, huh Warren?"

I froze. Her eyes were piercing mine, scrutinising me for every detail. I considered killing her then and there, in case she could reveal everything. I told myself to try and talk my way out of it. I was already wanted in Hoenn, I didn't want to have to hide from murder charges in Sinnoh too.

"Yeah," I said slowly. "The connection was a little shoddy in the pokémon centre, but I managed to get through alright."

"That's good," she said. Her hands fell silently into her pockets and she looked up at me with a perfectly straight smile. "So tell me, how did your dad manage to come back from the dead?"

I was knocked off my feet by an explosion of white. I fell flat on my back and found myself staring up at a sunken, icy face. Two deep-set yellow eyes stared back at me from an exposed, frozen skull.

"Call your pokémon off," Candice instructed me coolly. I inched my head to see her with what seemed to be a giant snowflake creating a brilliant green barrier, shielding her from my pokémon. "That frosslass has created a bond of destiny between you and me. Anything your pokémon do to me, you're going to feel."

I glanced at her, not believing a word she said. I found the frosslass' haunting eyes staring back at me and felt the ripples of wind hit my body as they struck Candice too.

"Stop!" I barked at my pokémon. They froze instantly, turning slowly to look at me as if I was mad. I shook my head, waiting until I could get them to attack the frosslass.

At least I didn't kill Candice, I told myself. The frosslass hadn't come from a poké ball. That meant Candice had planned the entire encounter out.

"What happened to the real Warren?" she asked me. She walked across the snow and glared down at me. "Did you kill him?"

I gave her the best flat, fearless look I could. "No," I told her, honestly. "He was dead when I found him. Gored by a mamoswine. I buried his body near where I found it."

Her eyes flickered in the distance, following the direction I pointed to. "You expect me to believe you buried him?"

I nodded. "Burning it would be too obvious in this cold. You'd be able to see where the ice and snow had melted. I could have left him for scavengers, but I don't know this area well." I tried my best to lean on my elbows, but the frosslass on my chest hissed and shoved me back down on the floor. I sighed and turned my head to Candice. "So what gave me away?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Aside from talking about a dead dad as if he's real?" She laughed. "For one, your team is _completely_ different. That rang alarm bells instantly. But you gave good enough answers; they were completely believable."

"Oh," I said. At least that was something good to know.

"But your accent, it's Hoennese." She frowned at me. "Warren – the _real_ Warren – supposedly spent his whole life in Twinleaf. None of his family have even _been _to Hoenn, apparently."

I chewed on that thought. I had no idea how to hide my accent – something I planned on learning how to do, once –if- I escaped.

"The one thing that really gave it away though?" she folded her arms behind her back and leant in close. "His mother rang today."

"Oh," I grunted.

"'Oh'," she echoed. "Apparently Warren didn't ring at all yesterday. Most boys at least ring their mother on her birthday. Apparently 'Warren' forgot. It rang alarm bells when she said she hadn't heard from him in a month. I asked her to send a picture of him through." She sighed and stood back up again. "Gotta say, the real Warren… looks _nothing_ like you. It was almost enough to make me laugh."

I sighed. "So is this the bit where you pin me down and gloat as you ring the police?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid. I rang them as soon as I found out."

"Oh," I whispered.

She smiled. "That's becoming your favourite word, isn't it?"

"It's pretty apt for this situation."

"Perhaps." She shrugged and put her hands in her pockets. She glanced at my pokémon quickly, made sure they were still behaving themselves before she leant back down to me-

-and offered me a hand up.

She saw the complete confusion on my face as I accepted her hand.

"Tell me," she said. "If you didn't kill him, why did you take his place? Couldn't you get a position in the ice gym in Hoenn?"

I shook my head. "I just… needed to escape for a while. One of my pokémon – my starter – died. Then another of my pokémon left because of it, then one of my best friends died. I just… needed a holiday from my life."

"Why Snowpoint?" she asked.

I glanced at Gemini. "I got a lead that somethi-_someone_ I know might be coming here soon."

Candice gave me a small smile. "And here I thought you were going to tell me you're a mass-murdered or something."

I laughed nervously at that.

She sighed, glanced back towards the town and then nodded towards the distance. "Go," she told me.

I blinked stupidly. "Go-_what_?"

She shook her head at me. "Are you stupid? _Go_. I've worked with you for three weeks, pretty much twenty-four seven. You're angry, arrogant and totally closed off from the world, but you're a damn good trainer. It'd be a shame to see you behind bars and your pokémon released, given away or put down."

My body told me to take her offer, but my brain forced me to stay. "But, why? I could have done anything?"

She shrugged. "Whatever you've done, you're beating yourself up about it. Besides, I know a thing or two about being somebody you're not."

"I-what?" I said stupidly. "You?"

"I'm not the real Candice," she said with a shake of her head. "The real Candice died about a year ago. No one knows how. There's a few guesses – rabid pokémon attack, bad luck, one guy even reckons she got attacked by dragons. Either way, no one really knows."

"'Dragons'?" I echoed.

"Yeah." She nodded. "Dragon skin makes for really tough, weather-resistant armour. Their bones are used in quite a lot of weaponry. Arrows, daggers, swords. There's a lot of people out there who prefer those methods, rather than using modern-day warfare. Dragons are weak only to other dragons or cold. Most time when they're being hunted, the team will bring along an ice specialist. Plus, you know garchomp eyes are apparently high class jewellery."

"Right," I said, digesting the information. I was tempted to poke her face, just to see if it was a mask. "So… why are you here?"

She hugged herself. "It was an Unova representative who found her. Members of the Unova government moved quickly, extracted her body and replaced her with a lookalike – one that was adapted to ice and could pass herself off as the real Candice."

"You," I said needlessly.

"Me," she confirmed. "I have to dye my hair and wear contacts, but I'm doing what needs to be done. This way, Unova's got someone on the inside of Sinnoh's darker secrets. The funny thing about politics – every country's going to have at least one spy quite high-up in their ranks.

"So I was pretending to be Candice by phoning the police." Her eyes met mine and she nodded just a little. "But I'm being _me_ by telling you to disappear. If the police find you here, they'll start asking questions. The more questions they ask, the closer they get to finding out the truth about me. So for my sake, and for yours; _go_."

I nodded and recalled my pokémon. I waved for Gemini to follow me and managed all of two steps away from the fake-Candice. "So who are you anyway?"

She smiled a sad smile. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

I didn't doubt her for a second.

* * *

It took me a few days to escape the area of Snowpoint. I tried my best to remain around there, in case the time pixie showed up. Instead I received nothing. Lacey's frequent information-gathering missions came back with no results either. It was almost like there was nothing that concerned the celebi in Sinnoh.

I doubted that. More than anything, I just figured that something was lying to us. It was the only explanation that made sense.

I growled to myself and aimlessly kicked a stone. It flew off into the distance and landed near a foraging chatot. The little bird squawked angry little chirps at me before flying off and attacking a fruit-bearing tree.

_[So it seems this entire trip was useless, doesn't it?]_

I fought the urge to punch a girafarig in the face. "It wasn't useless. I've learnt things about myself. We've found out that the celebi hasn't visited anywhere up here. That means whatever happens here obviously isn't that important to whatever future it wants. No results is still _a_ result."

Gemini snorted and narrowed her eyes at me. _[That is nothing but the excuse of a failure.]_

I glared at her. "Really? So then does this mean you've got results? Please, feel free to show them to me Gemini." She just snorted and turned her head away.

"See?" I hissed at her. "Don't complain at me if you've got no results here! You told me that you want that celebi's guts, yet it's hard to believe that when you're doing nothing to get there!"

_[Killing something that is near-invincible takes careful planning,] _she retorted. _[We can't just accidentally blow it up and kill it.]_

I flinched and pointed a finger at her. "Don't you _dare_ joke about that!"

_[Why not?]_ she responded flatly. _[Your life is becoming one long one. Imaginative memories and an anger complex – whatever god designed you wasn't having a good day.]_

"Why don't you mind your own?" I growled and turned away from her. "If you've got a problem with everything, why don't you just do me a favour and leave?"

She snorted. _[Believe me, I wish I could. But, although it pains me, you are my best hope of tracking down the creature.]_

"Oh, please, spare me the happiness I feel right now," I muttered. "So how is a celebi immortal anyway? I thought you could kill it by severing it's time-travel abilities and it's life in one."

She seemed to shrug. _[They're stronger than that. Celebi can die, but that is not what matters. They have a special pool, created and blessed by the gods. It allows the healing of all wounds. Supposedly Celebi were pure when they were given such a gift – they could heal closed hearts and inspire joy. Something changed._

_[They saw the future, they went mad with power or insane through the inability to die. If a Celebi is killed, another appears soon after. It teleports the dead Celebi back to the healing pool. It takes maybe a year, but it is enough to bring it back to life.]_

I just blinked. "Do you think we could use that?" I asked, with the tiniest bit of hope sparking in my chest. "Could we find that healing pool?"

_[I doubt it.]_ She rolled her eyes and stared out towards the snow-covered distance. _[No creature has ever found it. I can only assume it exists in another time. I came across an aerodactyl once. It had somehow been revived from a fossil. It was old enough to remember a time before humans. Supposedly something managed to permanently injure a Celebi then.]_

I felt myself move closer to her. "Really? How?"

She seemed to shrug again. _[It said it looked like it's eye had been ripped out. Whatever enables Celebi to track each other and possibly other things seems to be behind their left eye.]_

I thought about it to myself. "The brain?" It was hard to try and remember what I knew about killing such a creature. Of course – why would it bring me to the past if it knew I could kill it?

"Well, at least you've got some useful information then," I said as I walked away from her. "I was beginning to think I'd be better off leaving you stranded somewhere. There's only so much hatred against humans I can take. We're bastards. We're idiots. It's pretty much all you ever say."

She seemed to sigh from behind me. _[It's not hatred.]_

I stopped and felt myself smirk. "Really?" I asked, laughing disbelievingly. "What the hell could it be then?"

_[Jealousy.]_

"What?"

She nodded. _[Psychic pokémon… we harbour a jealousy towards humans. We know so much. But humans, you understand instead.]_

Unsurprisingly, I was lost. "Start speaking sense," I told her.

_[Psychics _know_. We know instinctively to drink water, because it cures our thirst. But humans, you understand why you need it. You discovered exactly what it does, exactly why you drink it.]_

"Okay," I said. "So why should I care about that? We figure things out. Big deal."

_[Figuring things out is one thing a pokémon does not have a drive for,]_ she said. _[We know things. It is only when we are presented with something that questions our knowledge, do we seek to see why our knowledge is wrong. Humans are constantly searching, disproving and proving everything. It is a level of intelligence most psychics feel would benefit us better. We can read minds, see the future and even sense a person by their psychic imprint.]_

I paid attention then. "What's a 'psychic imprint'? Is it like fingerprints or something?"

She nodded. _[It is a specific signal – a wavelength emitted from your brain that is unique to every person.]_

Psychics could track down people from that. I remembered being told that the celebi could hunt people down when they were finished with that task. I never paid any attention to it before then.

"Can you find someone's imprint, even if the person isn't there?" I began drawing aimless shapes with my finger. "Like, leftover energy or something?"

_[It is possible. If the person was experiencing a surge of emotions.]_

I think she said something else. My mind was elsewhere. It was already planning out a new course of action.

If psychics could track people, it meant I could find someone else that had been tasked by a celebi. If I could find them, I could probably find their time baron.

"We're going back to Hoenn," I said to Gemini. "Time we take the offensive."


	47. The Drawing Board

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Drawing Board**

* * *

_Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself ~ Francis Meehan_

**-O-O-O-**

"_We're obsessed with the history of pokémon. Where they came from, how they came to be, what caused such a phenomenon. But we always fail to use the resources at hand; the pokémon that live for a millennia whom we never ask a single question of."_

- Professor Aurea Juniper, 13th Unova League Champion, Origin of Pokémon PHD, Pokémon History MA. (November 19th, 3012)

**-O-O-O-**

Being back in Fallarbor was weird. Eerie even.

It had taken a week to get back into Hoenn and arrive in Fallarbor town. The summer heat of Hoenn nearly wiped me out after Sinnoh – it was literally going from one extreme to the other.

In more ways than one. It was weird to see the different spins each set country's media was putting on things. In the three weeks I spent in Sinnoh, I saw their news reports and how sure they seemed to be about Hoenn assassins being behind Aaron's death. Each minor detail that could have hurt their country was covered up or just not reported.

Hoenn was the same, yet the other way round. They played down Aaron's death, yet played up the explosion at the Pathornogix lab. They claimed it was Sinnoh extremists retaliating for Aaron's death.

I decided that I probably should confess all. At least that way they'd have the right person to blame for everything. But what Fake-Candice had said about the different governments and the way they played things made me think twice about it. Who was to say they wouldn't just get rid of me, or just hang me out to dry? I had to make sure I knew what the reaction would be before I did anything hasty.

Fallarbor felt like it was dead and dreary. Without the gym open and operating, most of their trainer tourists didn't visit anymore. They were losing money on rebuilding the gym and losing money through a lack of visitors. The little niggle at the back of my mind delighted in reminding me that it was all my fault. Just walking down the street brought back painful memories, old wounds and forgotten habits.

I put everything else out of my mind and lead Gemini to the hall where there had been that strange time traveller's meeting. The place was shut, boarded up and it seemed to have been hastily abandoned.

I wondered why. Then I saw the massive tree that had fallen on and squashed most of the building.

I resisted the urge to poke it, just in case it came alive. "Celebi can control nature, can't they?"

_[To an extent,]_ Gemini replied flatly. _[Not as well as The Shaymin, but well enough regardless.]_

The entire tree had been uprooted. It would take even a few machamp to rip it out of the ground and use it as a weapon, yet somehow one little imp could have been the cause of it all.

"There's a guy I spoke to," I said to my pokémon accomplice. "He was a little – a _lot – _insane. He knew things about what would happen once everything was done. He told me a lot of things. Mostly gibberish."

Gemini just snorted at me. _[And what makes you think he'll be able to help you?]_

I pointed at the fallen tree. "_That's_ the damn tree he ran away screaming from. It was swaying like it was caught in a breeze, except it was a perfectly still day."

She gave me a strange look but said nothing about it anyway. She was silent for a little while as I poked around the building, wondering just whether or not I could find anything. Finally Gemini gave a little sigh and said, _[I can't do it.]_

"I thought you could track people?"

She gave a tiny nod. _[When I know their psychic imprint, yes. I could track you easily. Someone I've never met? Perhaps. But to find their imprint in the middle of a town? There are only a few psychics that are strong enough to do that.]_

I shrugged. "So we'll find one of those then."

_[Perfect, you grab a few capture orbs and we'll go hunting for The Azelf and the like.]_

I faltered and glanced back at the building. "Okay. So we won't do that then. Is there no explosion of psychic energy you can grab onto?" I pointed at the tree and glanced at the girafarig. "What about _that_? You're telling me you can't trace the energy something used to do _that_?"

She sighed. _[Give me a moment.]_

I rolled my eyes and glanced back at the building. Honestly, I was a little upset that I hadn't found anyone there. If not the crazy man, then maybe the girl in the trilby hat. I knew that my initial meeting with them was all some sort of a set-up, but they were they only lead I had. I sincerely doubted my luck would let me find someone like me – if such a person did exist.

_[West.]_

I spun around and found Gemini right behind me. Her eyes were narrowed and her tail was hissing at its three o'clock.

"What about it?" I asked her.

_[There is a large amount of energy around here,]_ she said as she cantered around the fallen tree. _[But, it seems like this is the only instance of it. I cannot sense where it went, nor where it came from.]_

I threw a glare at the useless building. "So how do you know we head west then?"

_[Instinct,]_ she said. _[West of here are a number of forests. South is a mountain. North is more mountainside, with one town and then the sea – the way we came. East is a desert.]_

"So more logic than instinct," I clarified.

_[Instinct,]_ she repeated. _[I knew to head west before knowing what else lay in the other directions.]_

"Whatever," I grumbled. "Let's go then. There's going to be more mountains. It'd be easier for me to just put you in a poké ball."

_[I wouldn't advise it.]_

* * *

Forbidire City.

It was similar to the descriptions of Black City that I'd heard of. The entire city was rather modern, with black, reflective glass built into every building. There was still a little drift of ash that fluttered down over the city, giving it a little colour – grey. The buildings all rose far above each other, competing for space in the sky.

There was little light. It all seemed to be absorbed by the buildings. Shadows plagued every corner, cooling the city and giving it an eerie feel.

And yet, it felt welcoming.

Little pokémon scurried through the alleyways. They all had one thing in common – they were all creatures of darkness. Poocheyna and a few purrloin darted through the shadows as a murder of murkrow flew around above.

"I like this place," I said, mostly to myself.

_[How can you?]_ said Gemini with an audible shudder. _[It feels… like nothing. Even though I can see and hear it, I cannot feel it with my abilities. It registers to them like a fog.]_

"He'd have come here then," I said. "I remember; he said something about hiding within darkness. This whole place is dark. Not just the town, but the pokémon too."

_[It's unnatural.]_

"It's _welcoming."_

Gemini just snorted at me. _[I will not be able to track The Celebi in such a place.]_

"It doesn't matter," I said with a shrug. "It wouldn't have been able to be here. Lacey said something about them – they don't realise when dark pokémon read their minds. It means that they're not that strong in psychic abilities. Stronger than you, but not strong enough to sense past the darkness in pokémon."

_[So it would not have come here.]_

I scratched the back of my head. "It could have done. But it wouldn't have stayed long. Why would you, if you feel terrified with every step?"

It was strange to think that anyone would feel terrified in such a place. To me, it just felt so welcoming. Like nothing could ever go wrong there.

Then a woman fell from the sky.

I reacted before I thought about it. I threw Lacey's poké ball between us and drew a knife. Gemini barely managed a yelp and somehow the woman managed to land on her feet.

I glanced up and saw a mass of black feathers circling above. It seemed to be rising, like it was coming up from a substantially lower altitude. It had to have been, given that the woman seemed to have fallen from it.

I started towards her. "Are you okay?" I asked, Lacey stood protectively between us.

The woman stood up fully and shook her head. Her blonde hair fell back behind her head and she offered me the tiniest of smiles. Dressed in dark greys, she would have blended in well with the shadows around us all. I probably wouldn't have noticed her, had she not literally fallen from the sky.

"Fine," she said with a shrug. "Such things, they tend to happen often."

"Ri-ight," I said. With a quick flick of my wrist I recalled Lacey and turned away from the strange woman. "Gemini, let's go."

"Hold on," the woman said quickly. She moved around me with the grace of a ballet dancer and stood in way away from her. "You… seem accustomed to this area. Yet I have never seen you before."

"I don't live here," I said as I tried to move around her. "And I don't have time for twenty questions."

The woman continued to stand in my way. She leant her chin on her hand and stared at me with narrowed eyes. "You're dark."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "No, I'm white."

She looked confused for a moment. "I don't mean like that. You – your heart, is dark."

"You're just full of compliments, aren't you?"

She sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Tell me. What do you feel now?"

"Annoyed."

She stared at me for a long moment before she waved her hand a little. Everything around me turned cold and instinctively I leapt to the side. Her honchkrow appeared where I had just been standing, swiping its feathery wing through empty air.

"Interesting," the woman said even as I cursed and threatened her. "Tell me, have you ever trained yourself in such a way before?"

I resisted the urge to put my knife in her face. Mainly because her honchkrow could probably easily do away with Gemini in the meantime. It would damage my chances of being able to find the celebi pretty badly.

"No," I said tersely. "And who the hell are you to ask me all this shit?"

"Jessica Malnoir," she said. "I'm the gym leader here. I'm a dark specialist. If it weren't for your girafarig, I would have said you are too."

"I'm no specialist," I muttered. "And people can train pokémon that aren't the same as their adaptions. How else do you become stronger?" I sheathed my knife and made to move past her once more. "I don't have time for this anyway. I've got something to find."

"Very well," she said and stepped aside. "Though, let me ask you something; have you never felt something others can't? Do your psychics have trouble perceiving your thoughts? Have you ever felt like you were being followed, though there was no justifiable reasoning for such a cause?"

The last point made me shiver. I remembered the shedinja in Dewford. I remembered being able to feel that something was off, almost like something was stalking me, before I should have been able to. I stopped without realising it and it seemed to give the woman all the answers she needed.

"We're able to resist psychic telepathy and probing. We can also feel when a ghost has locked onto us and follows us."

I remembered the haunter after Fallabor. It and the shedinja both. But there was an exception.

"A frosslass in Sinnoh," I said without thinking. "It was focusing on me, forming a destiny bond. I didn't notice it."

Jessica seemed like she didn't have to think about it. "Was it particularly snowy at the time?"

"It was near Snowpoint," I answered, deadpan. "I'm pretty sure that's the norm for there."

"That'd be why," she said. "Frosslass have the ability to hide from detection when in snowstorms. Whether it's by other pokémon, machines or even human instincts, it remains hidden. Rather like sandshrew and the like within sandstorms."

She seemed like she knew her stuff. I knew I'd learnt a lot from the not-Candice, which meant I would be able to learn a lot from her too. But I had other things to do. A crazy man to track and a celebi to kill. I doubted they could wait for me to waste any more time around gyms.

But the fact I could somehow find out about myself and learn more of my advantages and disadvantages. I could use that in order to better defend myself. It was something I couldn't pass up, yet at the same time, a part of me told me I'd have to.

The little stab of pain in my kidney seemed to throw me in one direction for a decision.

"You ever get really weird dreams?" I asked her. "Like ones that seem to blur everything and leave you with phantom pain a little later on?"

"Can't say I have," she said. "Though the first part sounds pretty normal. The second… well, it sounds like something I'd write in one of my stories. A hint towards the character slowly losing grasp on their mental situation. Or pain within a dream that hints that something might be happening outside – a dream within a dream."

"That's nice." I rolled my eyes at her and waved for Gemini to follow me. "Anyway, we're done here. Like I said – I'm searching for something." I made it only a step away before a light went on in the back of my head. "About two months ago, maybe more. Did a really crazy man come by here? Twitched a lot, black hair, about-" I put my hand a little above my head, "-so high?"

She gave me a weird look before recognition dawned in her eyes. "Yes, I remember him. He didn't make much sense, though I think he was trying to hide from a psychic. He asked continually about hiding within darkness – 'away from its gaze'." She frowned and pointed off to a vague direction. "He left that way. We tried to follow him, but he just randomly disappeared."

I followed her finger and tried to see what was in the distance. "Is there a forest that way?"

"Possibly about twenty miles from the city." She shook her head and looked back at me. "You're trying to follow him, aren't you?" She sighed and didn't even wait for me to reply. "Very well. I cannot stop you from doing so, though I would ask of you one thing: come back here after you do or do not find him. People with adaptations need training. They usually receive such from their parents.

"Darkness requires the most," she told me. "Emotions are a powerful trigger for the trifecta of ghost, psychic and dark. One little thing can make a large difference."

I shrugged. "I'll keep that in mind." I turned and left her quickly that time, eager to not be stopped anymore. "Do you think she was on the level?" I asked Gemini once we were out of the leader's earshot.

_[I don't know,]_ the pokémon said. _[I couldn't read her mind, or even her emotions. It was like a fog was shrouding her mind. You have a similar situation, though yours is weak enough to be pierced with enough concentration.]_

Her words made me think about it all. If I already had a slight haze from psychics, it explained a lot of things that had happened. It also made me realise that I'd probably need it as an advantage over the celebi. But it meant going back to a city when I had other, more important things to think about.

My decision rested on whether or not I found the crazy man, I told myself. If I found him, I hoped that it would lead me towards my goal. If not, then perhaps training would help me in the long run.

Idly, I wondered whether or not I had to worry about being alive to see the end of the long run.

* * *

_/Everything is fucked, I decide._

_I remember my camp being torn apart. I don't know how it happened, but I remember hearing the shots before sunrise. I claimed my gun and shot anyone that I didn't recognise._

_I know now it wasn't enough. A little bit of me wants to go back and check the camp, just to see if there are any survivors._

_I can see the scavengers approaching though. A few fearow, some mightyena and maybe even a group of people are beginning to drift towards what's left of the camp._

_I sling my backpack over my shoulders and run for the nearest safe haven. I don't know who escaped alive. I don't know if anyone's wounded._

_I do know it's not my concern. They can fend for themselves._

_I race away and feel something small and metallic smack my leg with every step. The metal feels hard, foreign. _

_Two years and it still doesn't feel right._

_I remember being handed it near my eighteenth birthday. One of the guard-trainers had died. There was no one else to take his place. They said that since I knew the fatal points so well, I'd be able to train one with ease._

_I'm still shocked as to how true their words are._

_The world passes me by in a haze as I keep running. I keep my eyes focused, rely only on my instincts to help me survive. _

_One poké ball in my pocket. Another two in my bag. I know what they are, but something stops me from recalling exactly what they are. It's hard to explain._

_I can name the species. A vespiquen and a koffing-nearly-weezing in my bag. A zangoose in my pocket. Something stops me from knowing their names though._

_I stop running and look back at the remains of my life. I can see fires spreading. I can hear the tell-tale roars of pokémon. A bright orange dragon soars above the remains of the camp, spitting fire down on everything below._

_It amazes me that we managed to keep them all away for so long._

_I sigh a little to myself and release the zangoose. It appears on all fours, long claws digging into the ground and fur bristling under the slow fall of ash._

_It snarls at me. I ignore it. I point it forwards and march on behind it. It snarls at me once more and darts forwards, tearing a rattata to pieces. I ignore it as it trots along happily, dead rat hanging from its mouth._

_There's movement in the bushes._

_I spin round, gun drawn and ready. The zangoose – what _is_ its name? – drops the rattata and hisses at the sound._

_I see a face._

_I don't recognise it._

_I shoot._

_The person hisses as they go down. There's a snarl and another gunshot._

_Pain sears my arm._

_I hiss and grip the wound, tracing the small line that grazes it. I hold my gun in one hand, trusting the zangoose as I step towards the person to finish them off._

_I find her sprawled out amongst the plants, hair covered in soil and leaves. She holds her wounded shoulder and glares up at me, even as I kick her gun away and point mine in her face._

"_Not much of a sharpshooter," she says with a grim laugh. "I'm on the floor and have a bullet in my shoulder. What's your excuse?"_

_I can't place her accent. But what she says catches me off guard. I stare at my gun, at her and struggle against my mind to make a decision._

"_What are you doing here?" I ask her._

"_Currently? Bleeding." I roll my eyes as she smirks through a grunt of pain. "I heard gunfire, screams, pokémon. I came to investigate. Then I find you running away from it all. Figured you were behind it all."_

"_I used to live there," I tell her. My mind catches up and I'm confused as to why I'm telling her such a thing. "Everyone's dead, or as good as. This is just survival."_

"_Right." She sighs and grips a bit harder on her shoulder. "So can you hurry up and decide what you're going to do then? I'm bleeding a lot here, you're bleeding a bit too. I can treat them, but it's hard in this position."_

"_You're a medic?" My voice holds all of the doubt I feel. The zangoose has grown bored and has found its rattata snack again. "Why the hell would you even think about treating me after I've shot you?"_

_She shrugs then winces in pain. "Can't help it – I know how to heal people, might as well make use of it. Besides, you can't be that bad, otherwise you'd have shot me by now. Well, fatally at least. Which by the way, why haven't you?"_

_I'm at a loss for words. I holster my gun soundlessly and shake my head to myself. "I don't know."_

_She smiles to herself. "Well, I'll take that as a good thing. Now do me a favour will ya? Reach into my pack and get the gauze and bandages. I would, but I'm busy trying to stop myself from bleeding out here."_

_I nod and find myself doing exactly as she asks. Her pack is a few paces away from her. It looks like it's been placed there, rather than having been dropped. I figure that she probably placed it there before I shot her._

_I sigh to myself as I open the pack. My heart stops as I see what's inside._

_There's no medical equipment. Just an oddish. It shrieks at me and scatters a find blue powder everywhere._

_I feel consciousness slipping from me instantly. I can only think of what a moron I am before it claims me/_

* * *

I wake up and feel my ribs shriek agony. I'd ended up sleeping on them at some time during the night. I ignore Gemini's comment about something being imaginative as I pack up our little camp and start moving again. The lack of progress was getting to me. My kidney danced a painful tune – still in the place where I'd been stabbed in a dream. I considered it a good thing that one only had me being sprayed by an oddish.

Gemini ignored my musings and quickly pointed me back on our trail. I was amazed we even had one anymore.

It was like we were effectively lost. Gemini was still tracing the faint echoes of psychic power, but we'd yet to have seen any sign of life. Each of my other pokémon seemed to identify nothing before I recalled them back to their balls again.

"This is too large a space," I groaned. "We need a bird's eye view."

_[Give me a moment whilst I just grow wings.]_

"Not funny." I glanced at her then back to the worn dirt path in front of me. "Are we any closer to this big psychic feeling? Because the lack of life out here is slightly disturbing."

_[We're nearly there. In fact-]_

I tuned out the rest of her words.

It was kind of hard to pay attention to any words when I was presented with what I saw.

We'd found the crazy man.

But the celebi had found him first.

It looked like a tree had wrapped around him. The branches had all become warped. They were twisted and turned, almost like they were hugging their victim. He looked like he'd been suffocated. Somehow he'd been suffocated by a tree.

I couldn't stop myself from shuddering. A nasty little thought told me that was what could happen to me.

_[I think we found your lunatic.]_

I glared at her and took a step closer to his corpse. "We can't use this for anything, can we?

_[No.]_

"Great." I fought the urge to throw something at his corpse and instead just turned back to Gemini. "What do we do now? This was the only idea I had to this. Can you track the celebi still?"

She gave a little whine. _[Not really. I can feel the psychic pulse of energy it left behind… but I can't tell where it went. It's almost like it stopped existing.]_

"Which, given that our enemy can travel through time, is quite likely." I kicked a rock on the ground and looked around. "Okay, so what the hell do we do now? There's no way we can follow it through _time_, so we're going to have to think of something. Where could it have-"

A cold shudder raced down my spine.

I had Loki and Lacey out of their balls within a moment's notice. They seemed confused for the slightest moment until they noticed something. It let me know I wasn't imagining things.

There was a little chill that ran through the air.

Loki hissed at something. His fists caught fire as he leapt forwards. There was a high-pitched scream as suddenly as frosslass appeared underneath him, its face meeting fist and fire both.

Lacey shrieked as ice formed around her. It built around her feet and trapped her in place before something big and white charged into her. It bounced off a bright blue barrier Gemini brought into existence and glared at us all.

It was a giant snowflake that hovered unnaturally in the air.

More than that, I recognised it.

"I wasn't expecting you to notice us."

A massive white yeti knocked over one of the trees around us as it strolled forwards. Loki was still hissing as he continued to beat the frosslass into submission. We all seemed to ignore its shrieks as Gemini shattered the ice trapping Lacey and the snowflake floated in circles around us.

I saw a woman sat on the yeti's shoulder. She looked familiar, but something was off. Her hair was black but cropped short, while her eyes were bright blue.

It took me a moment to realise just who it was. "_You?_ What the hell are you doing here? This doesn't look like Sinnoh to me."

She ignored me and recalled her frosslass and the snowflake. She waited for me to do the same with Loki and Lacey before she hopped from her pokémon's shoulder. "New job," she said as she found a pack of cigarettes in her pocket. She lit one quickly and stuffed the pack back where it came from. "Apparently something bigger has been happening in Hoenn here. My bosses wanted me to figure out what it was. They reckon a lot of things that have been happening here are linked."

"Right. And they chose you for this? The woman that's been working undercover as a gym leader for over a year?"

She shrugged. "I got all the information I could from that job. I had to pull out when Lucian dropped by for a visit. Didn't have my weavile around and he seemed to be asking a few too many questions. So I got pulled out."

I folded my arms. "And the _real _Candice?"

She smiled to herself. "They'll be finding her charred body in a few days. Apparently some Hoennese terrorists will have killed her for something or another. I didn't really pay much attention to that part, I was busy making sure I wasn't followed."

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. "Her death's being blamed on Hoenn? How? _Why?"_

"Unova's new plan of action." She took a step closer to me but remained near her giant pokémon. Little bits of ice seemed to form on the winds around it, even as it stood there, still as a statue. "They've seen that Sinnoh and Hoenn are going to fall into war sometime soon. Apparently it's not profitable to try and stop it. So instead they're encouraging it. Because after all, Sinnoh and Hoenn both buy their weapons from one main exporter."

I didn't have to think about that one. "Unova, right?"

"Right." She nodded and took a drag of her cigarette. "Two countries go to war, they'll need weapons that aren't pokémon. Easier to explode a whole town with a bomb, rather than use a pokémon to do so. So Unova charges higher prices for weaponry. They get more money from the countries, then _they_ invade and take over when both Sinnoh and Hoenn are weak."

"They won't get the chance." I knew the results – what would happen before anything could get to that stage. "Everything's going to fall apart before then."

"If you say so." She shrugged and glanced at the tree which held the crazy man's corpse. "So what are _you_ doing around here? Don't tell me you happened to come across him by chance."

"I was tracking him." Whoever she was, she'd been kind enough to let me escape when we were in Sinnoh. She seemed to trust me, even when she knew nothing about me. I found myself doing the same. "He had answers I needed. But, well, as you can see I was a little late."

"No kidding." She rolled her eyes and stamped on the remains of her cigarette. "So who are you, really? Considering you managed to infiltrate my gym with nothing more than lies and luck, then I find you with the corpse of someone my bosses were intent on questioning."

I shrugged. "Just someone with a lucky streak. I'm not sure if it's good or bad yet though."

"That's hard to believe." She shook her head and walked towards the man's body. She stopped a few paces away and went to touch it, but drew her hand back at the last minute. "I'm more concerned about what could cause this, to be honest. There's not really many pokémon that could have a _tree_ kill someone."

"Celebi, The Shaymin." I found I couldn't think of any others. "That's two there, right?"

"The Virizion makes three," she said, mostly to herself. "It's a pokémon legend from Unova," she told me. "It's meant to be the guardian of all the pokémon that live in forests and the like. I can't see it doing something like this though. Unless people have been randomly killed by rockslides, impaled by metals or drowned while they're nowhere near water."

"It was a celebi," I told her without thinking. I gulped as she glanced round at me and raised an eyebrow. "I mean, there's the gym leader in the town a number of miles from here. She said he'd been in looking for a way to hide from psychics. Celebi's the only one that can do this and be a psychic, right?"

"I hope so," she muttered. "Otherwise, we've got one hell of a problem on our hands." She sighed and rubbed her eyelids. "I don't have the clearance for anything near this big. Celebi hunting down humans… I've heard reports before, but I've never _seen_-"

"You've heard reports?"

"Yeah." She turned back to me and gave Gemini a weary look, almost like she didn't trust the girafarig. Gemini, for her part was just remaining silent, albeit staring intently at not-Candice whilst she was doing so. "Here and there. There's been one known of every so often, about eight years, or something like that. But there's people that investigate into all of this that think it happens all the time. They reckon The Celebi have soldiers or just disposable investments they're using to alter the future as they please.

"Problem is, there used to be a set of pokémon that were meant to stop such a thing. Well, until most of them were destroyed by The Celebi."

I blinked, taken aback. "Okay, firstly, _how_ do you know this? Secondly, what the hell was it and can we find one to take on celebi?"

She sighed and gestured for me to sit down. It felt considerably weird to do so near the crazy man's corpse, but I find myself obliging anyway.

"In Unova, there's a large desert that hides the remains of an ancient civilisation. There's a number of pokémon there – yamask and confagrigus – that are ghosts who supposedly used to be humans. They're old and remember a lot about their past – even their past lives. Then there's sigilyph – they're pokémon that were tasked with defending that city. They're psychics and well, the oldest one that's been found was nearly a thousand years old. We don't know how old they can live to, but a lot know tonnes about our past.

"Anyway, two of our Elites are specialists with psychics and ghosts, respectively. They found out that they could talk to these pokémon and find out things that we never knew about our past – things we never knew about pokémon we thought existed or didn't."

She shrugged to herself and sat down opposite me. "You probably won't have heard of them, but there was a race of pokémon called victini. We know of them in legends in Unova – they're meant to bring victory to whoever knows one. Turns out in the past, it was a little different. The 'victory' we associate with them bringing was actually them stopping The Celebi from changing the future too much. Originally The Celebi were meant to balance the world, or something. So they'd travel to the future, and if one species was far too powerful, they'd travel back and bring them back down."

"This has happened a lot?" I asked.

She made a gesture I couldn't understand. "Probably. What we know for definite is that they changed psychics. They used to be unstoppable; weak only to insects, but there weren't many of them left. So The Celebi went back and made a few alterations. Now there's insects everywhere and psychics are weak to darkness and ghostly energies. That's apparently what they were first tasked with. Victini were guardians, so to speak. They were to make sure The Celebi didn't go out of control with their powers."

"So something happened and all these victini got killed?" I guessed.

"Pretty much." She nodded. "I'm guessing something in the future went bad, or maybe one of The Celebi developed a fondness for power. Point is, war apparently started between the two groups. Victini were meant to have the advantage; both of them are psychics, but victini were able to control fire. Cut a long story short; almost all of them were killed. There's always a few rumours floating round about them – the latest was that a victini was living in a lighthouse basement – but not one's ever been found."

"Wow," I said when she was finished. My brain couldn't fathom another response. "So is that why you're after celebi?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Honestly, I don't really know. I just got told to investigate this and report it back to my superiors. Maybe they're trying to confirm everything sigilyph and the ghosts have said, maybe they're after a time-travelling ally. I only know what I'm told, which thankfully, for this case was quite a lot. Though this does all bring me back to wondering just what the hell you're doing here, tracking after the same thing I am. Who do you work for?"

I shrugged and spun my finger in a little circle. "I'm… independent. This is just something that… holds close to me, is all."

"Right." She sighed and glanced back at the warped tree. "Well, now I've got a problem that my only lead happens to have been strangled by a tree. This was the last lead we had in this country too." She shook her head and looked to me. "So you've obviously got an idea of what you're doing. What do you say we team up?"

I choked on my laugh. "I'm supposed to trust that your bosses won't just kill me afterwards?"

"Well… yeah." She smiled to herself and finally recalled her massive yeti. "If they see you've helped me out, you might even get hired by them. Of course, you _could_ be working with Hoenn and secretly trying to get employed by Unova…"

I managed to laugh that time. "If I was, I wouldn't need to. I could just hang round you and get you to tell me everything I need to know."

Her face was a picture. "Yeah, I do that a lot. Problem with this job; you never have anyone to talk to about anything. And if you do, you usually end up having to kill them afterwards. But you seem to know a lot. Plus, you can keep a secret. And let's face it, you're rather stupid too."

"Hey!"

She laughed. "Come on. You impersonated a dead person you looked _nothing_ like. You didn't even make sure that the family didn't ask questions. I've told you a lot, but the only thing I have to worry about is you forgetting to breathe or something."

My face fell. "You're too kind."

She smiled. "I know. You can call me Marsha, by the way."

"That's not your real name, I take it?"

"Nope. Would you tell me yours?"

I grinned back at her. "Probably not." I glanced at Gemini and gave her a little nod. "Gemini's my… partner on this venture. She's invested in this, for reasons of her own. The only ideas we've got is trying to track the celebi's psychic signature, but well…" I trailed off.

"Hard to track something that can disappear through time, right?" Marsha finished for me.

"Got it in one." I rubbed my temples and pushed myself to my feet. "So any ideas?"

"Dusknoir," she said quickly. "They're meant to be able to see spirits, guide them onto the afterlife, or something like that. Not sure if that's true, but what I do know is that they can possess corpses. They can find out their last moments and let us know exactly what's going on."

"Great," I said enthusiastically. Then reality hit. "So what good would that do us? Confirm a celebi did this, but it wouldn't let us know where it went afterwards. Unless they can magically track a murderer."

She smiled. "That's pretty much it. Ever hear that something can 'stain your soul'? It was pretty much coined for dusknoir. If someone was murdered, they can see something that attaches itself to the murderer. They can use that to track the person or thing to wherever it is – as long as it's in this current time. I don't really understand it myself, but I remember someone telling me it was like the principals of energy – when we eat something, we get energy from it, whether it was a plant or meat."

"Well, we've got a plan then," I said. "Let's get about to finding a dusknoir we can use."


	48. Step 3: ?

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Step 3: ? ? ?  
**

* * *

_Always be yourself… unless you suck ~ _Joss Whedon

**-O-O-O-**

"_There is always more to it than meets the eye."_

- Caleb Harris – optician and political activist. (August 18th, 3006)

**-O-O-O-**

"Are you sure we can just leave him there?"

I'd made my way back to Marsha's car with her. She'd parked a little way from where she'd found me and hidden it behind the trees expertly. There was even a weavile waiting within that seemed ready to gut me until Marsha told it otherwise.

We'd left Crazy Ivan - as we'd come to calling him – back where we'd found him, still attached to the tree that killed him.

Marsha shrugged and kicked her car into gear. "Should be. I've left Ryan back near him, so if anyone comes nearby, she should be able to scare them off."

"Ryan?" I looked at her, then back out of the car and drummed my fingers against the window glass. "That's the frosslass, right?" I glanced out of the mirror and tried my best to see the distance behind us. "And your jynx is going to teleport with Gemini once we've arrived."

Marsha threw me a confused look. I shrugged to myself. "I like to go over plans. That way I remember them. Easier to recall it from memory than have to rely on paper."

"If you say so." She slammed the brakes down hard and spun round a bend, leaving my stomach somewhere outside the car. I groaned a little, opened my window and leant my head out into the fresh air.

"My contact's in Mount Pyre," she said as she overtook someone to get onto a motorway. "It's gonna be a four, five hour drive there. Jack will be fine with your girafarig; she'll probably have teleported them both there already and just start investigating everything there."

"And two psychics randomly appearing by themselves won't freak people out?"

She shrugged. "Sure it will. But it's still pretty common. Mount Pyre's a place of memorial. Loads of trainers set up gravestones there for pokémon they never had a chance to bury. Even those that they did are memorialised there; it's easier to go to one place to remember them all, rather than travelling everywhere just to visit where you buried them."

Her words brought my memories back to my pokémon. I tried to ignore my thoughts, but they kept reminding me how pointless Xander's death had been. I played out little scenarios in my mind, changing little things and seeing what could have been.

I finally just smacked my head to banish the thoughts. Marsha shot me a glance but said nothing about it. Instead she just leant back in her seat and carried on driving one-handed. "So can you drive? It'll be an easier trip if we do half each."

I shook my head. "Never learnt." Never really had the opportunity. Most cars were long dead by the time we'd come across them. If they had any life in them at all, we usually drained the batteries to fuel everything back at camp. We didn't see the need in using vehicles when we had pokémon trained for transport and carrying heavy loads.

"How comes?" she asked me. "I mean, Hoenn's legal age for driving is sixteen, same as Unova and Kanto. It's only Johto, Sevii and Sinnoh where it's bumped up to eighteen."

I grasped for the first excuse I found. "Never really had the money."

"I'm not surprised," she said. "Most trainers don't know how to drive. A few have their parents teach them when they've come back from a journey. Most countries scatter their tournaments anyway, so if you've finished one, you usually only have a month until another country is hosting theirs. Not enough time to register."

"Who taught you to drive then?" She swerved around a lorry barrelling down the motorway and flipped the driver off as she zoomed ahead. "Was it a maniac?"

"Course not." She laughed and glanced quickly at the lorry behind us. "Part of my training. Driving, weapons, self-defence. Enough to make sure I can get from place to place and look after myself." She threw me a quick grin. "I'm even certified to drive a tank. I can fly a private plane too, but I don't really like that. I'm too nervous about piloting something that's up in the air. With a car, if I lose control, I can gain it back and hopefully not injure myself too much. A plane? Something goes wrong in that and I end up dropping to the ground at a million miles an hour? I'm going to run from that pilot seat, grab a parachute and launch myself out of there."

I smirked to myself. "You don't like flying then?"

"If I'm piloting, then hell no! I don't mind it otherwise." She slammed down on her horn and cursed at someone that cut across the lanes in front of us. "I don't like the thought of having to fiddle around with a load of controls whilst I'm plummeting to my doom. It's way too slow and would take too long to finally die. I've been shot before; I'd welcome that to losing control of a plane every time."

The phantom pain of my own bullet wounds flared into existence. "You'd honestly go through that again? Once was more than enough for me. Three times was way beyond what I ever signed up for."

Her head snapped round to me instantly. "You've been shot _three_ times?" She shook her head at my nod and focused again on the road. "That's insane. I've only really been shot once. Every other time I've had my vest on. Still, three times? That's insane. Just how old are you anyway? Warren's thing said he was nineteen, so you've got to be somewhere around that."

"Seventeen," I said. "Not eighteen for a few months yet."

"And you've been shot three times?" She shook her head. "That's insane. When I was your age, I was just starting my exams to get my current job. Eleven years later and I've been shot only double the amount of times as you."

"You're twenty-eight?" I glanced her over and the age didn't seem right in my head. "But… you don't…"

"I know, I don't look my age." She grinned at me quickly. "It's a blessing sometimes. Other times, bit annoying. I mean, there's only so many times I can put up with teenage boys asking me out before it just tends to weather on my nerves. Luckily, most of the time, I don't have to worry about anything like that, but working as Candice exposed me to the general public. I don't know whether to hope that it's because they thought I was Candice, or that they actually find me attractive."

She sighed to herself, reached into a pocket and lit herself a cigarette, all the while still somehow managing to keep her eyes firmly on the road. "But I can't really complain. Those things are inconsequential in the face of other things. Like my hair. I really like my hair before I took this job. It was nice and blonde – I'd finally gotten it into a style I really liked. Then I took this and had to keep dying it black every so often, just to make sure my roots didn't come through. And of course, afterwards, I had to just cut almost all of it off, because have you ever tried to get black dye out of your hair? It's next to impossible."

I grunted to myself and stared out of the window, unsure of what to say. Marsha didn't seem to mind my silence; in fact she took it as an opportunity to keep talking.

"I miss being blonde," she moaned. "I miss a lot of things actually. Like being able to wear dresses. You can't really chase after people in a big, long, flowing dress. I miss deep-fried cream cakes. They don't do them here, only in Unova. I miss my girlfriend too."

I turned slightly at that and caught the smirk on Marsha's face. She laughed to herself and flicked a bit of ash out the window. "Funny that; you only seem to pay attention when I mention that."

"I _was_ listening," I said. "I just didn't know what I could say to any of it." She snorted, unconvinced at my words. I shrugged to myself and stared back out the window. "So who is she then? It isn't Maylene, is it? Those rumours had to come from somewhere, right?"

She laughed. "No, it's not her. Maylene's a good friend… or well, she was to Candice. It was difficult around her, because she knew Candice so well. But you know what the media's like; one drunken kiss and suddenly they think that you're gonna be getting married sometime soon.

"But no, my girl's not involved with pokémon. She works in the police, back in Unova." Marsha smiled to herself and started to tap her fingers against the steering wheel. "As much as I do love my job, sometimes I do wish it didn't mean I had to be away so much. She's pretty high up in the police, so she understands that sometimes I need to disappear of the radar."

I nodded, if only to myself. Finally I managed to ask the one question that had been bugging me for a while, "So how comes you're telling me all this?"

Marsha gave a small shrug. "Why not? This past year, I haven't really spoken to anyone that knows me, save for my pokémon. And maybe my bosses, but that's usually a quick report on everything that's going on. It feels good to finally be able to talk about things that are going on in my life. Besides-" She turned to me and flashed a fanged smile, "I'm not an idiot. That destiny bond my frosslass created between us?" She waved a hand between us as she spoke. "It's still there. You do anything to me, you feel it too."

"Oh," I said. I wasn't that surprised. Idly, I started to wonder if there was a way I could get rid of it, just in case Marsha stabbed me in the back first.

"And well, I've got other insurances too." She waved to the back of the car. "Look at the back seat and count to three."

I felt an eyebrow rise in curiosity. She gave me a quick grin and a nod of the head. I spun around in my seat to stare aimlessly at the backseats in the car and started to count to three.

I hit two and a knife sprang out of the seats. I leapt back, hit the windscreen and glared daggers at Marsha as she laughed at me. Both backseats had spring-loaded knives slowly retreating behind the seats until they were hidden once again.

"That…" I breathed heavily, searching my mind for words. "That… was pretty awesome."

She grinned. "Isn't it? There's one in your seat too, just so you know. I find people are more cooperative when they know I can have them killed at any moment. Not that I don't trust you… actually, it is pretty much that I don't trust you."

I found myself subtly trying to find a whole in my chair where a knife might spring out of. "I can't blame you," I said. "Though I do want your car."

She laughed and winked at me. "Perks of the job. Maybe after all of this, start working with the Hoenn government? You might get something equally as fun. I've only used it once though… it's kinda messy. I needed a new car afterwards."

She threw on the brakes as another car overtook us suddenly. She cursed the air blue at the driver and swore once more as she saw traffic building up in the distance. "You've got to be shitting me," she said, rubbing her temples with a hand. "What the hell's happened now? I knew it would be quicker to just fly there."

She pulled to a stop and swore at everyone she could think of. Finally she stuck her head out of the sunroof to try and see what was going on.

"You're having a laugh," she said and slammed a fist down on the roof of the car. "What sort of _idiot_ starts having a damned _pokémon battle_ on a freaking _motorway_?"

I stuck my head out of my window and followed her gaze. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A few car's distance in front of us a few people had pulled over and between them was a large orange dragon and an equally large blue dragon roaring at each other, breathing flames across the road and each other.

"Morons!" Marsha shouted at them. "This is damn well illegal! Move your stupid idiot selves off this damn motorway or I'm going to run you over!"

One of them shouted back something I couldn't quite make out. Whatever it was, it seemed to piss Marsha off even more. "Right, fuck this," she said and leapt out of the car. I scrambled out of the window and followed her to the roof as she took a poké ball from her pocket. "They want a fight? I'll damn well wipe them both out and throw them and their cars off this motorway!"

When she threw out her poké ball, I was expecting something like her big yeti to come out.

Instead it was a massive black and blue scaled dragon. Its hands looked like heads with pink petals sprouting from their necks. It took in a deep breath and roared loudly enough to shatter a few windows on some cars.

"Sort these morons out," Marsha told it. It roared and took off into the sky, overturning an abandoned car. The trainers and their pokémon turned around just in time to be bathed in green flames. Marsha's pokémon hissed at them all, picked up both dragons in its head-like hands and casually tossed them both off the motorway. It flew back, slapped the trainers with its thick tail and sent them flying after their pokémon.

I found myself sitting atop the car roof, mouth agape at the massive black dragon. Marsha returned it and bowed to the applause of a few motorists before they took off down the road once more.

She winked at me as she climbed back into the car and waited for me to follow suit.

"What… what the hell was that?" I asked when my voice finally returned.

"His name is Felix," she told me. "He's a hydregion. They're native to Unova and pretty temperamental."

"Oh," I said stupidly. "So did he kill those people and their pokémon?"

"Nah." She smiled and shook her head. "Just threw the pokémon at the ground below – they're tough enough to shake off the hit. Their trainers were aimed at their pokémon, so those dragons will catch their masters. If not, I'm sure there's a lake down there that'll break their fall.

"Anyway, we better motor." She grinned and slipped the car into gear before we well and truly rocketed down the motorway. "Those pokémon are still alive and probably wanting payback on Felix. So it'd be in our best interests to get out of there before they come hunting. Someone else has probably reported those idiots to the police, so they'll be equipped enough to deal with a pissed off charizard and salamence."

"And what does that entail? A few tasers, guns and maybe a pokémon or two?"

She laughed. "In your imagination, maybe. But the police are gonna have strong pokémon for such occasions. Granted they usually gang up to take down a pokémon, just to be on the safe side. Guns, well, they can work on pokémon, but it's not a good idea to shoot an already enraged dragon. Actually, it's just generally not a good idea to shoot a dragon, full stop. "

"So how exactly do you think your boss is going to react when he finds out you used your pokémon to throw a few people from a motorway?"

She shrugged and checked her mirror, just to see if they had started to follow us. "Can't say. Probably just laugh and tell me that I did everyone a favour. Or suspend me for two weeks. It could go either way."

"So, everyone in Unova's crazy? Good to know." I watched everything blur past outside and tried to read the signs for how far away we were. "So who's this contact of yours?"

"You'll see."

* * *

Mount Pyre was a weird place. I could see it looming in the distance even before we boarded the ferry that would take us there. It made little sense to me to have something like a place of memorial so far away from anything, but Marsha told me it helped to stop vandalism. Apparently the Pokémon Tower in Kanto had been that abused by vandals that it eventually got turned into a radio tower instead.

Fog loomed all around the mountain. Even from a distance I could hear the vulpix and mightyena atop the peaks howling and adding to the feel. The roar of a houndoom shattered any eerie feeling there was and made it just plain haunting.

"We should hurry this up," Marsha said. "I don't really like this place. It creeps me out. And there's also the problem of my contact not really liking being seen out in the open."

I folded my arms and gave her an unconvinced look. "So he comes to a place where people gather, to avoid seeing people?"

"He's at the top," she said, pointing to the peak of the mountain. "There's a couple of little old ladies there that guard some sort of memorial for orbs that are meant to control the power of The Kyogre and Groudon. They generally don't really care what goes on in the outside world, as long as everything for them remains the same. And besides, people come here to mourn. They're not going to suddenly turn around and be all 'Oh wow, you're him! Can I have your autograph?' And if they did, then they're a bit weird."

As soon as the ferry docked she motioned for me to follow her. We made our way through the main entrance of what appeared to be an indoor graveyard, complete with eerie fog, just like the outside. A few ghosts were floating about, cackling harmlessly above everyone else.

"This way," Marsha said and led me through one of the side passages. We ended up back outside, with the smell of fresh grass and mildew floating around, mixing in with all the creep sounds of the area. "Watch your step," she warned me as she started wading through the grass. "Pokémon live out here. You don't want to step on a vulpix or a bellsprout. It won't be pretty."

I remembered the victreebel from my time and shuddered. I called Scar out of his ball and let him make a way through the grass for me to follow. A few pokémon came up to him, inquisitively trying to sniff him or take a look, whereas the braver and possibly stupider pokémon tried to battle him. For the most part, he ignored them, only dealing with the stronger ones, or chasing away the weaker ones with little streams of fire.

The pokémon avoided Marsha and her yeti though. She told me it was an abomasnow, native to Sinnoh and very tempermental. If anything came too close to Marsha, her pokémon roared at them with enough ferocity to scare even the ghosts.

It took nearly an hour to reach the top. Once we had, the fog had thickened even more and breathing was incredibly difficult. There were a few chimecho and shuppet floating around, crying in the thick fog and making it seem like something from a horror film. Despite the thick fog, Marsha seemed to know where she was going perfectly. Scar and I followed behind her, using the silhouette of her pokémon as a guide.

Finally we reached our destination and found familiar figures waiting for us.

_[That took you long enough. Next time you leave me, at least leave me in the company of someone interesting.]_

I smiled to myself and saw the jynx reporting back to her trainer. Gemini stood in front of me, face flat and her ears pressed against the side of her head. "What's wrong?"

Her tail snapped in the direction of Marsha. _[I do not trust the woman. She lies as habit. Even now she is deciding on the best way to eliminate us, should she need to.]_

I blinked, shocked only by my lack of surprise at her words. The memory of the knife-laden seats in her car was still fresh in my mind. Marsha saw me looking at her and gave me a confused shrug. I waved it off and turned back to my pokémon. "So you're saying we should ditch her?"

_[No.]_ Gemini's tail drooped and swayed uneasily behind her back. _[She is the best hope we have for finding The Celebi, at the moment. We should use her, but be ready, in case she betrays us.]_

I smirked and folded my arms. "So basically, the same way we treat each other?"

_[Precisely. Though being able to read your mind, albeit with difficulty, I would still know the instant you decided on betraying me.]_

"Unless you do that to me, I don't plan on it." It was true. I didn't fully trust the girafarig – a part of me knew that her appearance was too good to be true. Yet I played along, just in case she was honest. It was also the reason why I treated her so much better than my pokémon – the vain hope that if she thought of me as a friend, she'd think twice about betraying me.

Though really, was I one to judge?

There was a shadow that moved in the fog. We all tensed up until Marsha took a step closer and signalled that it was safe. She even recalled her jynx to prove the point.

"It's alright, you can come out," she said to the shadow. Slowly the silhouette took the form of a man possibly just a little older than me. He was rather nondescript in every aspect, save for his dyed green hair. What looked like an oxygen tank was strapped to his back and ended with a scuba mask of sorts over his face. He took a deep breath of the gasses inside and pulled off the mask, flashing Marsha a small smile as he switched his gear off.

"Good to see you," he said in a weak voice. It was somewhat breathless, though otherwise seemed perfectly fine. He caught sight of me and instantly his hands flew to the poké balls on his belt. "Who are you?"

"He's okay," Marsha said quickly, her hands up as she moved between us. "He's with me. We're working on something."

The guy gave me a distrusting look but nodded and Marsha regardless. He gave her a once-over and a little smile came to his face. "You don't suit black hair."

She stuttered a laugh as her hands jumped up to cover her hair. "Don't remind me. It should only be a few months until my hair's long enough that I can cut the black out. You alright?"

He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. "Things have been quiet. There's still little whispers every so often about something or another, but it's always turned out to be nothing more than rumours. She stays around Sootopolis a lot these days, around the Origin cave there. He's usually around the Sky Pillar. Aside from a few trainers going in there every so often, nothing big's been happening."

Marsha nodded, folded her arms and glanced up at him. "But there's obviously something, given what you said?"

He nodded and paced on the spot. Finally he walked a little further into the fog and seemed to be staring out into the veiled distance. "There's…" He trailed off and stared at me, still not convinced.

"He's alright, you can trust him," Marsha said. "I've already told him that if he tries anything, he'll be dead."

His eyes narrowed on me, his jaw set in a fine line. Finally he sighed and turned back round to us. "Fine." He looked over at me. "You know what happened with The Rayquaza a few years back, right?"

My mind was a blank at first. Then suddenly I remembered the gym leader from Sandstream and what he'd said to me. "It appeared about four years ago to quell a fight between The Kyogre and Groudon, right?"

"Yeah." He nodded and paced on the spot again. "There were two teams behind that; The Aquas and The Magmas. Eco-terrorists that almost destroyed the world. They were defeated, but even now there's still little whispers of a resurgence, people taking over their ideals, or something like that.

"Wallace, the big coordinator-slash-ex-gym leader-slash-coordinator-slash-world champion often looks into the Origin Cluster with Steven Stone. The gym leader in Lilycove, Melissa I think her name is? Anyway, she or some of her trusted trainers scope out the old Aqua hideout near Lilycove from time to time. It's underwater, so there's usually not too many problems there."

He looked away from me and stared at Marsha. "But the old Magma one's raised a few eyebrows. Flannery said that one of her trainers went in there the other day to check things out. Apparently he said it looked like people had been trying to use the place for some reason. It's only ringing alarm bells because he also found a little… well, a big pile of corpses."

"You think Magma's up to their old plans?" Marsha asked.

The man shook his head. "I don't know. It could be nothing more than a serial killer. Maybe just an angry pokémon is using it for its nest. But Flannery went back with the trainer. Apparently they found a load of Magma paraphernalia and plans for Sinnoh."

"What's in Sinnoh?" I found myself asking. "Unless they're planning a big attack because they think Sinnoh's behind that lab-explosion-thing."

Guilt was prickling that back of my neck as I spoke about it. The shame and despair I felt at the time threatened to leap back up, full force. I could feel Gemini in the back of my mind, silently questioning me. I had to ignore it all and focus on pretending to be ignorant to what had truly happened.

"That's one possibility," the man said. "But another is one of Sinnoh's mythical pokémon. The Heatran, said to be able to create volcanoes. Or cause them to erupt, I'm not too certain on the details. Point is, if people think they can use it to create new landmasses or something, it could be a repeat of four years ago."

Marsha nodded quickly. "And you can't investigate this because?"

He turned around and looked out to the distance again, staring at somewhere near Sootopolis. "We're meeting up again. Wallace said there's been things going on in the Origin Cluster. It might be nothing, it might be something big. We agreed we'd team up and go check things out. Melissa's going to have some people check over things here, Juan's going to take over checking things in Sootopolis and Phoebe said she'll cover the Sky Pillar.

"I know you're technically from Unova and don't need to get involved in this, but I trust you on this. You've helped us out a lot in the past."

She laughed and dropped her head, even as she shook it. "You sure know how to lay on the pressure, don't you? Alright, I'll do it, but I'm still going to need what I came here for."

His face lit up a little. "Thanks," he said and produced a poké ball from his pocket. "I owe you for this."

"Damn right you do." She took the ball with a laugh and tossed it casually between her hands. "I might need to call this favour in pretty soon though. How long you going to be in the Cluster for?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'll let you know when I'm out though."

"Alright." Marsha nodded and gave him a small smile. "Don't be a stranger."

He gave her a quick grin, me a curt nod and then placed his mask back on his face and left into the fog pretty quickly. As we made our way back down the mountain, and once I was certain he was out of earshot, I poked Marsha's arm. "Who was that?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You didn't recognise him?" As I shook my head she sighed to herself. "I thought you were from Hoenn? That was Wally Wallowitz. You know everything that happened with The Rayquaza a few years back? Well he helped out. Him, May Maple – the gym leader Norman's daughter – and Brendan Birch – son of Professor Birch. They were all about fifteen then. They'd travelled round most of Hoenn together for some time and were all trainers from the age of ten. When everything with the legends went crazy, the gym leaders and Elites here tried to sort things out, as did the ones from Sinnoh and Kanto. While all of them were busy battling the armies of pokémon Magma and Aqua owned, in addition to trying to defeat The Groudon and Kyogre, those three had somehow managed to get ahold of the ruby, sapphire and emerald orbs.

"Dunno much about them, but they're able to well, not control those titans, but make them see sense, or something like that. Those three used those orbs and calmed down the legends long enough for Rayquaza to get its act together and sort the other two out. Then they just made their getaway pretty quickly, leaving Magma and Aqua with unfinished goals, defeated pokémon and a veritable army of pokémon, trainers and more surrounding them. And that's your history lesson for today," she said as she lit up a cigarette. "Seriously, you should know all of this already."

I guess being born in the future impedes learning about current history.

I shrugged to myself and slid my hands into my pockets. "So what's up with him then? The mask and everything. He sick?"

She grunted as she nodded. "Cystic fibrosis. He'll die young and his lungs are pretty screwed over, but using that respirator he leads a pretty much normal life. A lot of people in the media claim it's only asthma, but I've never seen anyone with that who requires a respirator. His parents even had to send him to live with his aunt and uncle for a little while, just because they lived so much closer to the place he was getting treatment from."

"You sure know a lot about this, don't you?"

She threw me a smirk as her yeti lumbered alongside her. "He's my cousin, of course I'm going to. Technically second cousin, but still." She stopped suddenly, almost making Gemini and I smack into her. Scar stood off to the side, giving us both a smug look. "And I've just realised the problem with all of this. I need to be in two places at once. I've got the lead with our dead guy to check out, but I've also got to investigate the old Magma base."

I held my hand out. "Give me the dusknoir then, I'll check out Crazy Ivan."

"I don't think so," she said as she drew her thumb lazily across the ball. "She won't listen to you. Worst case scenario, she might just attack you. I've got to use her for this. Can you do me a really big favour?"

"No." I glared at her and motioned for the poké ball once more. "I only care about finding out about our celebi problem. How do I know this isn't all some elaborate trap to leave me to die in some weird ex-terrorist hideout?"

"It's not. Look, we're working together, right? Well I'm willing to trust you to investigate the hideout if you're willing to trust me to check out Crazy Ivan." She sighed and tossed the poké ball up and down. "Both of these things need investigating. A pile of corpses isn't exactly something that can be ignored. If you don't help me out on this, then you'll just have to figure out your own way to do things. Because let's face it, after I've found out what I need to with Crazy Ivan, his body is getting sent to my bosses for investigation. I also have Ryan watching over the body. If she sees you return without me, she'll assume you've hurt me and kill you on the spot."

I felt my glare slowly subsiding as logic threatened to win. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about Crazy Ivan, even if I couldn't find out directly. I didn't have a dusknoir I could use – I really doubted Adryan would be happy to see me, much less so if I just wanted to borrow a pokémon. She presented it like I was doing her a favour when really, I was trapped and had no choice.

"Fine." I sighed and glared at her one more, just for effect. "I'll check out the Magma base thing. But why are they going to trust me?"

"I'll give you my spare badge," Marsha said. "Or not really my spare, more my one for non-employed personnel who are helping me out. But spare is a lot easier to say."

"Whatever." I recalled Scar and trudged on ahead, leaving them to trail behind me. At the time, I thought having to investigate it would be nothing more than a waste of my time.

Though there was no way I could have ever guessed at what I found in there.


	49. Hardship

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Hardship**

* * *

_The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live ~ _Flora Whittlemore

**-O-O-O-**

"_The best of hopes often lead to the worst course of action."_

- Anon. (Unknown date)

**-O-O-O-**

As much as I originally liked Lavaridge, being back there couldn't help but fill me with a sense of anger. It was distracting me from the one goal I had – the one that I'd come so close to finally completing. I had to wait around for Marsha and hope that she'd found all the information we needed from Crazy Ivan's body.

I took a deep breath and coughed as ash settled down in my mouth. Gemini snorted by my side and slowly cantered up the mountainside, choosing her footing carefully and somehow managing to stay upright all the while. She gave me a condescending look and carried on ahead, searching for some sign of the former base.

I pulled the crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket and analysed the picture once more. It was a sketch of some sort of weird symbol I apparently had to look for on the mountainside. Supposedly the entrance to the base was directly beneath it, but Marsha told me I'd need some sort of firepower to get through. The door only opened to fire, apparently.

I touched Scar's poké ball and smiled a little to myself. At least I already had one key that I needed.

Gemini stopped a little distance ahead of me and huffed. Her ears pinned against her head and her tail snapped around her as she glanced around the ash-covered mountains. _[Do you even have any idea where we are headed?]_

I shrugged and scoured the brown-grey covered landscape. "Somewhere with that symbol I showed you. There's meant to be about three or four entrances along here, so we should be able to find at least one of them."

_[This is foolish. We should be attempting to track The Celebi, rather than wasting our time here.]_

"But what if it's behind this too, somehow?" Granted there were no forests nearby, so I couldn't really picture it randomly appearing and attacking people, but it was a hope…

_[You don't believe that.]_

… A hope that I knew better than to have.

"Maybe not," I admitted, "but this needs to be done. If something else is happening that might be somehow linked to that stupid time-pixie, shouldn't we investigate it?" I spun around full circle and finally buried my head in a hand. "This is going to take forever at this rate. These mountains stretch on for miles. We need someone that knows this area to help us out here."

Belatedly, I realised that we already had that. I called Scar out and let him familiarise himself with the surroundings before I asked if he had any idea about some sort of secret underground base.

To my surprise, he nodded and motioned for us to follow him. Along the way my brain started making up various tales as to how he already knew – maybe he'd been captured by one of them before. Maybe he'd somehow stumbled onto their base, one of the pokémon in their clan had been captured. I remembered his gunshot wound when I first caught him. Maybe he'd received that from someone that was operating secretly beneath the mountain, using the remains of a terrorist group's hidden base as their own base of operations.

"How do you even know this is here?" I asked him. He turned around, gave a little grunt and continued walking purposely through the ankle-deep ash. I had to glance at Gemini for a translation. The girafarig huffed and rolled her eyes in my direction.

_[He said it's none of your business.]_

"Oh," I said, deflated. I was so used to being told everything I needed to know, it seemed strange to find there was something someone didn't want me to know. Maybe I could have got it out of him, were I treating him normally, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. Becoming attached and losing them hurt too much. It was easier for me to deal with the little pains of closing myself off from them, rather than being their friends and losing them like Xander.

Eventually the charmeleon lead us down a path littered with fallen trees and overturned boulders. There was a clear walkway cut through the ash that somehow seemed to be able to shrug off the continual falling drift. We finally reached a dead end, with a large orange rock wall that towered over us and was at least three times my size. In a little nook at the very top, covered in shadows and overgrown brown vines was a tiny little symbol that would have been easily missed, had I not been looking for it.

"This is the place," I told my pokémon. "Alright, Scar, light the wall up."

He gave me a weird look, almost like he was questioning my sanity. I was starting to wonder just how sane I'd end up anyway, at the rate I was going. Scar finally took a deep breath and blew red-hot flames all over the orange wall. The vines above caught fire and crackled loudly. Then suddenly there was the sound of something heavy shifting and the wall in front of us slowly slid away, revealing a weird tunnel behind it.

Lights were strung up all along the walls. Even then they were working, years after Magma had supposedly used the base. Either someone was still using it, or Magma had a brilliant engineer with them.

_[I do not like this place.]_

I couldn't help but throw a smirk at Gemini. "Really? Because I always find that sinister, hidden tunnels are always so inviting. Maybe we might even meet a few friends down there."

_[I hope something eats your face.]_

"Whatever." I inched closer and peered into the surprisingly well-lit tunnels. "This place isn't going to explore itself." I drew my gun and let it lead. "Scar, you stick by my side. Gemini, cover us from behind."

We made our way into the tunnels in tense silence. The continual light within seemed to make it even eerier than if it were completely dark. In the dark, at least we would have been on edge and expecting things to leap out of everywhere. In the light, it seemed even weirder – that every shadow held a foe, that every corner had someone hiding behind. The dark would have hidden such things; everything would have been a possible enemy. The light pinpointed exactly where the enemies would be.

Scar recoiled at something that I couldn't sense. It put me on edge until he put a claw over his snout and tried his best to cover his nostrils. Even then my mind screamed airborne toxins until the familiar smell of decomposition hit me.

"Well, I think we know there's definitely something dead in here," I muttered as we tracked down the smell. It was weird to walk down the corridors of tunnels made deep into a volcano and mountain range. They were surprisingly spacious and held up well – it looked like they'd survive another few decades, at the very least. When Wally and Marsha had explained everything to me, I'd half expected to find dilapidated tunnels that were falling apart and rife with angry pokémon. Instead the tunnels were spacious, still holding and well lit. There was even air conditioning blowing a faint breeze on us continually.

It was obvious whoever built the bunker expected it to last. It made me wonder just whether or not the terrorist group were up and running again, or whether they just thought they were last longer than they did.

_[Well, this is interesting.]_ Gemini rounded a corner and sniffed at something I couldn't quite see. She turned to me and stared me straight in the eyes, her gaze deadly serious. _[Obviously something powerful did this.]_

I wondered just what she meant.

Then I didn't have to, when I saw exactly what she was talking about.

It was a massive pile of pokémon. Some were whole, some were in pieces. All of them were dead. The blood had coagulated and attracted thousands of little insects that were busy feasting on the remains. I wondered just how I missed such a sound when my ears re-registered the sound of the air conditioning humming all around me.

"I don't think a human could do this," I said as I kicked the lumpy pieces of flesh something had left behind. "There's no tool marks. All these body parts look like they were ripped from each other. A machamp maybe? It definitely has the strength."

Scar made a little dismissive sound. He sniffed the air again, growled and motioned for us to follow him once more. I threw another glance at the pile of dead pokémon and saw a door hidden behind all the chunks. A little part of me said I should try and find out just what was buried beneath the death. Caution won out as I followed after Scar, intent to secure the area before I went investigating anywhere else. I didn't want a repeat of any other time I hadn't been fully prepared somewhere.

_[I cannot sense anyone else in here,]_ Gemini said. _[We appear to be the only living creatures in this complex.]_

"The fact that you said 'living' creatures doesn't exactly feel me with confidence." I threw a glance back at where the pile of dead pokémon had been and shook my head to try and clear it. "What could have done something on such a large scale? It would have to be more than one thing; a few machamp or a few psychics working together. No one thing could possibly do something like that on its own."

_[I don't know,]_ Gemini whispered into my mind. _[Something there… throws my senses off. Not like a creature of darkness, but more… an overload of power. That much power was used there that I can't quite discern it's origin.]_

I frowned and bit my lip. "That makes no real sense."

_[Think of when your electronic devices receive too much power and crash. A mind is similar. Too much pain and it crashes. My senses are overloaded there.]_

"So whatever group of things did that there used so much energy it's enough to disable psychic tracking?" I blew a long breath and ran my fingers through my hair. "Well, that's definitely reassuring. Think it could be that pixie?"

_[Perhaps. But I saw the remains of a few dark pokémon there. Even The Celebi cannot override the immunity of the dark creatures. Either it is working with something else, or something much worse is happening.]_

"I'm not sure which one of those I'd prefer," I admitted. "Scar! Any ideas where we're going yet? I don't like this aimless wandering in a place I don't know."

He gave a small hiss and motioned something I couldn't quite understand. Instantly afterwards a new, stronger smell hit me and I knew we were close. Another corner led us straight to another pile, though this one was so much higher than the last one we found.

It was also entirely of humans too.

Or, human bodies rather.

"These aren't in pieces," I said as I inched myself a bit closer. I could see the remains of blood that had leaked out of some people's ears. Their noses, their eyes and even their mouths had leaked blood too. Others had their bones snapped. Some were in such bad states I couldn't even say what had killed them. The smell of them all was that bad that even breathing through my mouth let me taste the smell. It took every ounce of willpower I had to not throw up then and there.

_[They died quickly, if that is any reassurance.]_

I threw a surprised look at Gemini and followed it up with a quick shrug. "Don't really care. As long as it doesn't happen to me. How do you know they died quickly anyway?"

She made the closest to a shrug she could. _[I don't. I just thought that you could use comfort. Humans generally comfort each other in such a time, don't they?]_

"I suppose so. And since when did you care about my feelings anyway?"

_[If you can't work as well because of your feelings, it's in my best interest to help you. Better that I try to comfort you, rather than you succumb to grief or worry and have a repeat of a previous occurrence.]_

I felt myself tense immediately. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Something slammed into her before she had the chance to reply. She smacked into the wall behind her with enough force to crack it and went down instantly. I snapped round in the direction of the assault, itching to shoot at whoever was there. Everything in me screamed that we'd found whoever was behind all the bodies.

Then _pain_ overloaded my brain. I dropped my gun and fell to the floor, clutching at my head, unable to hear anything above my own screams.

Finally, with no small amount of mercy, everything went black.

* * *

Slowly the blackness faded away. My hands and feet were throbbing, like they'd been bound and the blood was slowly flowing into them less and less. I tasted metal in my mouth and felt something wet and sticky atop my lip. My tongue told me that was where the blood had come from. My eyes were blurring as everything around me spun. I could only tell that I was somewhere away from the bodies – I couldn't smell them anymore.

I couldn't hear Gemini either. I tried to find her, instead finding nothing but a strange little office, of sorts. There were pictures all over the wall. I couldn't see what exactly what they were – just that they were all of some large, red creature.

The sight of it reminded me of Scar. I couldn't see him anywhere. I tried to move my hands to check my other pokémon, only to find them bound to something above me. Metal rattled as I tried to move my arms and I finally gave up with a sigh. My vision cleared enough to finally let me know that my poké balls weren't on my belt – instead they seemed to be on a desk on the other side of the room.

There was a loud crash behind me. I jumped without meaning to and tried my best to find who had captured me. My brain screamed at me for being so foolish; walking in, without back up, into the lair of what was possibly a group of serial killers.

Someone's hand gripped my throat and tilted my head back. My eyes widened in recognition at the figure in front of me.

"I didn't think I'd find you here," said Adryan.

I nearly choked on my tongue. Instead I found myself coughing until finally it stopped and I found words again. _"You?"_ I asked, stumped. "You're behind all of this?"

I saw his eyes widen in surprise behind his glasses. "Behind what?" He asked, raising one eyebrow above the other. "You should be the one telling me. Psycho-soldier with a penchant for blowing up buildings, then I find you in some secret underground lair, full of bodies?"

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. "I asked you first."

"I have my pokémon ready to kill yours and you at a moment's notice," he countered. "So I think you're gonna be talking first."

I growled at him and considered calling his bluff then and there, if only to see if he was really behind everything. Finally I sighed and nodded at one of the pockets on my jacket. "I'm investigating this place. Friend of a friend called in a favour. I'm doing this while she's tracking down the time-pixie."

He squatted in front of me and folded his arms. For the first time I noticed the bags under his eyes and the way his tan seemed to have wasted away. "Because that's believable." He snorted to himself and leant in a bit closer. "What's the real reason? Try to make this excuse a bit more believable."

"I'm telling the truth!" I snarled at him. "It might be unbelievable, but you know I'm from the goddamn _future!_ Working with someone to investigate something isn't that much of a stretch, is it?"

He rolled his eyes and grabbed at the pocket I'd indicated. The badge Marsha had given me came out in his hand, which he stared at for a long moment. Finally he snorted and tossed it back in my lap. "Nice forgery. But really, Unova Special Investigations? You couldn't have made something that was a bit more believable?"

I sighed and tried to move once more. My arms still restrained, I settled for just glaring at him instead. "Believe what you want. But really, why would I suddenly turn serial killer? Or at least, one that hides bodies in an underground bunker built into a volcano? Doesn't that seem a bit farfetched to you?"

"Maybe," he admitted. "Which also makes it a good cover. Really, I don't know what to believe with you anymore. You let your starter die. You blew up a building full of people. Do you know how many people were in there? How many had families? How many lives do you think you ruined that day?"

"I know!" I shouted at him.

"Do you? Do you really? Because the way I see it, you blew up a building, had some fun and decided to go around killing even more people! How many more lives are you going to take before you're happy?"

"This wasn't me!" I screamed and tried to lunge at him. My arms caught on my restraints and screamed as they pulled me back into place. My ribs felt like I'd injured them again and the pain in my kidneys flared back into life. I groaned and fell back, leaning my head against the wall. "I know what I did was wrong. There's nothing I can say about it."

"You're not even sorry?"

"Of course I am! Mia was in that building! Do you think I'm exactly happy knowing that I killed one of my friends?"

He seemed a bit taken aback by that. I dropped my head and stared down at my feet, refusing to look back up at him. Finally he laughed and my head snapped back up of its own accord.

"Would you even be feeling this way if she wasn't in there? If Mia wasn't one of your victims, would you honestly be feeling bad right now?"

The words died in my throat before I could even form them. Defeated, I just stared back at the floor again.

"I thought as much." I was slightly surprised he didn't sound smug. Just, resigned to a fact. And somewhat disappointed. Something hard and metallic pressed against my head. It took less than a second for me to recognise the barrel of my own gun pressing into my forehead. My heart sped up of its own accord, even as my brain spilt into different parties for the course of action they wanted to take.

"Really, it'd be just so much easier to pull the trigger here and now. It's what you've done, right? Or at least, how you started off? Kill someone for the good of everyone. Maybe you did the right thing with Aaron. Maybe even with that Champion in Dewford. But killing a lab full of innocent people? The saddest thing is that it doubled up as an abortion centre. In a way, those women got what they wanted."

"Not even I'd make that joke about it."

"I know." He sighed and dropped his arm. "I'm just trying to make myself feel better about things. The laughter hides the pain. Only not too well, it seems. I'm trying to tell myself this would be the best thing. One bullet. It'd kill you. It'd stop you doing any more harm to so many people. I could even hide you in the mountain of bodies someone's left here. But I'm not a murderer."

A scornful laugh burst out of my mouth. "Those people you've killed would say otherwise."

He flinched and looked away. "I know that. But despite my bravado, I still feel bad about them all. How can't you? Sure, they may have been scumbags, but I still killed them. Killing one of my friends? Not sure I could really convince myself I didn't care about that. So what are you really doing here? If you're not the one responsible for all of this."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Like I said, I was checking this place out on the request of a friend of a friend. They said that some gym trainer of Flannery's had found a pile of corpses here and they figure it was all to do with some serial killer or some resurgence of Team Magma. What the hell are you doing here?"

He gave a small laugh. "If you'd paid any attention to me the last time we met, you'd have a faint idea. The job I've mentioned I have? The one that I took some time away from? I'm working in the gym here. I happen to be the mystery trainer of Flannery's."

My mind went blank for a moment. "You? You're the one working for Flannery? Since when did you work in a gym? Since when did you even _want_ to work in a gym? I thought you didn't want to be a specialist trainer or anything like that."

He shrugged and stood up, walking to and fro in front of me. "I didn't. Not really. But when Lucy died, I starting thinking about things. I don't want to be a trainer forever, if it means that I keep losing my pokémon. I wanted to get a normal job, something that meant I wouldn't have to constantly deal with my pokémon dying on me. The only problem is that I'm twenty and I've been a trainer for ten years. I've got no experience for working in a bank or anything like that. So my only options were around pokémon really. I could have become a breeder and worked with Chris, but I couldn't manage a farm full of pokémon. That and I'd probably become too attached to everything and never be able to sell anything off."

I nodded and shook my hands a little. "So now that we've established I'm not the serial killer here, how about you untie me? My hands and feet have pins and needles."

"I suppose I can," he said. "Though bear in mind; if you do try anything, I'll just have to knock you out and tie you up again."

"I'll make sure I'm as good as gold." I moved my hands a little again and stared at my poké balls on the table. "So where's Gemini and Scar? I take it you haven't killed them and eaten their bones or something."

He ignored my bad joke in favour of freeing my hands. "Irenui and Willow are looking over them. Never knew you had a girafarig though. You catch that after your gallade walked out on you?"

"You saw her before," I said, narrowing my eyes a little. "When we were in Sootopolis. Even before, with everything around that lab."

He looked confused until recognition lit his face up. "Oh yeah. Right. I remember now. Sorry, my memory's been on the fritz lately. I blame work. Before that, I never had to deal with constant headaches or the like. I don't know how Chris does it."

I ignored him in favour of rubbing my sore wrists. Adryan gave me a small, somewhat apologetic look as I stood up and made my way out of the room, picking up my other pokémon on the way. Sure enough, in the next room was Scar and Gemini, both looking annoyed and like they were ready to rip the faces off the flygon and gardevoir standing guard. Willow caught sight of me and let out a guttural hiss that made me leap back, though she remained firmly in place when Adryan told her it was all alright.

Once I was certain my pokémon were fine, I recalled Scar and made the mental note to keep an eye on Adryan and his pokémon. I gave Gemini a purposeful glance and saw the slight shift in her head that let me know she'd heard me.

"So what do you think's going on here then?" I asked Adryan.

He shrugged and pointed in a vague direction. "best I can tell, something killed a lot of people, piled up their corpses somewhere."

"That's useful," I grunted and turned away from him. "The pile of pokémon pieces had a door hidden behind it. Have you checked that out?"

His blank face said it all. "Uh, no. I didn't even notice that. I just saw the masses of pokémon and reported it. Call me crazy, but investigating a room hidden behind a pile of ripped apart pokémon on my own doesn't exactly sound like something that will end well."

"So now you're not on your own. Let's get going and investigate this damn place. Gemini said whatever did it used enough power to overload her senses."

"Willow said the same thing," he grunted. "So that means it's got to be a pokémon that's done the killing."

"But a human could still be behind it all," I countered. "Pokémon aren't smart enough to commit mass-murder on such a scale, are they?"

He shrugged and made his way out of the little room, bringing us back into the familiar, corpse-stench corridors. "A few months ago, I'd have said no. But apparently there's pokémon smart enough to bring specific people through time with the intention of making things better. There's been stories in the news about pokémon that have committed murdered, but that was usually a case of them dissecting some other pokémon or maybe a random human to find out how they work. Blissey might be used as doctor's assistants, but they've got to get their knowledge of how things work on the inside from somewhere."

I thought back to all the blissey I'd seen helping out at the pokémon centres and couldn't help but shudder violently.

"Now?" Adryan continued. "I just don't know, to be totally honest. Maybe one could, but I'd be confused as to why they'd leave them all in big piles in an abandoned bunker. A pokémon that can plan things out like that is just a scary thought. And hopefully it stays that way."

I threw a glance at the gardevoir floating by his side and the large flygon crawling on all fours behind him and shared his opinion whole-heartedly. I hadn't heard of a case like that myself and I didn't want to ever hear of one, if I had my own way.

"Something's happening in the Origin Cluster," I told him. "The person who told me about this place mentioned that. Something's going wrong there too, apparently."

He stopped and glanced at me, surprised. "Really? Like what?"

"I dunno." I shrugged and traced a finger along the walls. It came away dust free, surprisingly enough. "He wouldn't tell me much about what was happening there. Just things acting weird, apparently."

He gave me a look I couldn't understand before he grunted and carried on walking. He made his way through the corridors so well that I couldn't help but wonder if he'd been here before. Of course, he had, given that he found the pile of bodies, but he seemed to know it a bit too well for someone that had just found it.

"So how many times have you been here anyway?" I asked, deciding to take the direct approach.

"A few times." He gave me a grin and tapped a hand along the walls as we walked along. "A little while after Team Magma broke up, after the base had been cleared by all the police, it was what all the cool people did – sneak into the old bases and see what you can find."

I snorted. "I have a hard time seeing you as being cool. Ever."

"Why else do you think I tried sneaking in?" He laughed and shook his head to himself. "Back in the days where I thought other people's opinions mattered. But anyway, we used to sneak in these places quite a lot and see what we could find. I think Flannery had just become a gym leader then, so we gave her loads of headaches when she had to try and find us down here. We probably weren't the nicest we could have been to her. And now I'm working for her. Weird how that turns out, isn't it?"

I said nothing, merely shrugging as the smell of rancid fetor hit us both. The pile of ripped apart pokémon remained in place, slowly decomposing and feeding the ever-growing swarm of flies.

"I take it we're not shifting that by hand," Adryan commented, touching a squishy piece of dead meat with his boot.

"When we have two psychics with us? Are you actually that stupid, or do you need to try?"

He clipped me on the shoulder. "Shut up. I forgot for a moment, alright? I do a lot of things myself – one of the big things in being a gym trainer is relying on yourself to do things, you know?"

A little smirk grew on my face. "Actually, I do." I gestured for Gemini to move some of the pile aside as Adryan gave me a confused look. Finally he decided to say nothing about it as he had Willow follow Gemini's lead. Finally everything was shifted to two piles on either side, leaving us a gruesome pathway.

"What do you reckon we'll find in there?" Adryan asked as he inched closer to the door and tried it. "Once we unlock it, of course."

"Hopefully something that tells us just what the hell's going on here." I tried the door after Adryan and came up as short as he did. I growled, kicked it and just watched it shake in its frame.

"Obviously that isn't going to work." Adryan stepped back and glanced at his gardevoir. "Any ideas here?" There was silence as they talked about something, then finally Adryan sighed and scratched his head. "Apparently there's some sort of psychic lock holding it in place. I'd ask Ripper, but I sent him to scout out the place a while ago, but he hasn't come back yet."

I gave him a confused glance. "A psychic lock? Those can be placed on doors?"

He shrugged. "First I've heard of it, but I trust Willow. If she says there's one on it, there's one on it. It's gonna have to be a really strong psychic that was able to do that. Or someone that's really in the know."

I said nothing and let Loki out of his poké ball. One quick command later, he had phased through the door and punched a hole through it from the other side. The lock fell straight out of the door and the little sableye grinned wildly as he swung the door open, revealing his success. I thanked him and returned him, ignoring the look Adryan gave me.

The once-sealed room was dark, in stark contrast to the rest of the base. Inside there was a bright green light and a soft humming.

There was also a dusknoir floating in the middle of the room.

I backed away, ready for a fight as Adryan stepped forwards, completely in shock. "Ripper? Just what are you doing in there?" The dusknoir floated forwards and grumbled something I couldn't understand. Finally Adryan checked around the room, thanked his pokémon and stood on his tiptoes, trying to reach the roof. "Apparently he got stuck in here, by that psychic lock. Which really makes me wonder just how damn strong whatever it was that put that up is."

"Well, as long as we don't ever bump into it, why should we worry?" I pressed a button on the keyboard's computer and watched a bunch of gibberish flash up on screen. Adryan shoved past me and basically pressed his face into the screen.

"This is weird," he said as he pressed a few buttons on the keyboard. "I remember learning about this language off my dad. Well, it's not so much a language as more scientific code a lot of people use to hide certain things."

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. "Wait, so you actually understand what's written there?"

He shrugged, even as he was bent over, scrutinising the screen. "Not so much. Maybe if I could get a print out and study it for a few weeks. Dad said it's usually a cipher, to stop spies stealing their ideas. I always thought he was a bit of a loon when he said such things, but I got older and realised what actually goes on in the world."

I rolled my eyes and went to walk back out of the room. Gemini was by my side, silent the whole time, though she gasped when Ripper appeared out of the shadows and loomed in front of me.

"_Thou must leave… too much harm hast been done…"_

He disappeared back into the shadows instantly afterwards. I wondered just what the hell his warning – was it a warning? – meant when Adryan stole my attention by cursing at the machine for not having a printer. I found it just a little weird that he could potentially understand everything on the screen.

Then just like that, things clicked into place.

"You!" My hands balled into fists and were shaking by my side. Adryan spun around and raised an eyebrow at me as part-anger, part-fear made me shake and begin pacing on the spot. "You're behind all of this, aren't you?"

He snorted and leant back on the computer console. "Alright then, I'll bite. What have I done this time? Is this another time where you decide the world hates you and you need to kill things to make yourself feel better? Because seriously, when you're in a room with a dusknoir and a gardevoir, with a flygon waiting outside, maybe starting a fight with their trainer isn't the smartest thing to do."

"That's just it!" I barked. "You're so smug and confident right now because you're damn well behind it all! Everything goes wrong in the Origin Cluster? Well guess where you happen to have visited recently. Things go wrong near Lavaridge, where you oh-so-conveniently happen to be working? And come on, you actually understand some sort of cipher that's used on a computer hidden in an underground bunker? And who was the person who told me about that stupid damn laboratory!"

"Why don't you shut up and think for a minute?" he said coldly. "I can see where you're coming from for the first few reasons. Hell, I can even understand why you'd jump to such conclusions. But _don't_ try and blame your fucked up decisions on _me_! I'm not the idiot who decided to get his pokémon killed! I'm not the one that decided the best plan of action afterwards was to blow up a _whole fucking building_ just for some twisted idea of revenge!" He crossed the room and grabbed me by the scruff of my collar, lifting me just off the ground. "You don't go around killing people and get to blame others. You fucked up. You deal with the damn consequences! The police are looking for you and I should really just hand you straight over to them. But right now, for some _stupid_ reason, I still think that you _might_ just have a higher purpose here. You know, like maybe try and save the _fucking world?_ The same thing you were tasked to do? And what do you do? _Anything but!_

"Sort your fucking act out," he growled and threw me back against the wall. "You're helping to figure out how things are going wrong, good for you. Now quit blaming other people for shit that happened in your life. It's not like you'll be around to regret things after you save the world anyhow. Hell, _I'm_ doing more to save the world than you are, and I'm not even the one a pokémon abducted!"

My ears burned with embarrassment, but all of it was ignored with his final few words. "And just how the hell are you trying to save the world?" I snapped back. "Living a normal life, working a nine-til-five? Or don't tell me; your boyfriend's some mystical creature that happens to be President of the World? How the hell is that saving the world?"

He shook his head and turned around to the computer console. "Just get out of here. I don't know who you killed to get that badge and I really don't want to know. You're just ruining everything around you. Do me a favour? Get the hell out of my life. If I never see you again, I can die happy."

I spun on my heel and stormed out of the room before I could say anything back to him. There were a number of things I wanted to say – wanted to scream – but I knew I'd only end up hating myself for saying them. Gemini followed me out and hissed at Willow on her way. The gardevoir floated around her, hissed back and brought Ripper into the fight too. I growled for Gemini to follow me and stalked my way out of the underground complex. I had found out just what was happening there, that was all I needed to do. In that moment, I told myself that I'd let Adryan rot, if that was what he so desired.

* * *

Outside, the ash was still falling. I stomped across the floor, kicked ash clouds out of my way and generally just cursed anything I could think of. I scratched my elbow as deeply as I could, using the pain to distract me from how desperately I wanted a fix. It pissed me off that I was doing so well, only for something like that to make me want to fall into old habits. Then of course, getting pissed off only made me want to do it more.

I punched a rock and cursed again as pain flared through my entire hand. Gemini trotted up behind me and said nothing the whole while. Finally I turned around to her and leant back against the same rock I'd just injured myself on. "So what was that about then? With the gardevoir?"

She snorted and flicked her ears. _[She is a hypocrite. She claims to hold her trainer above all others – to kill anyone who dares to harm him. Yet she does more than anyone ever could.]_

Despite everything that had happened, fear punched me in the gut. "Why?" I said, jumping to my feet. "Just what's she doing?"

Gemini looked away quickly. _[Nothing.]_ She shook both her heads and nodded towards the town. _[We have achieved what we sought to, correct? Perhaps we should wait for your human accomplice back in civilisation?]_

I stepped in front of her as she made to exit. "Not until you tell me what you meant."

I was fairly certain she rolled her eyes at me. _[After such a display? I wonder why you would even care. It's obvious he wouldn't care if you ended up as a salamence's meal. Why should you care about him?]_

I sighed and pressed a hand to my head. "Look Gemini, I just want to know, okay? There's a few things there that just don't damn well add up. I'd like to know why he's suddenly got such a massive shift in personality."

Gemini shook her heads again. _[It is not your concern. It will only distract you from your task. Let things play out as they should.]_

"Gemini," I growled. "Tell me."

_[No.]_

"This isn't a game!"

She turned away and began to walk towards the town. _[About time you learnt that. I am not one of your little pokémon you can command as you will. If I don't want to tell you something, I won't. We agreed to hunt down a common enemy. Trivial matters created by stupidity are not of our concern.]_

I felt the anger of her second head bore into the base of my brain. A little shoot of pain came with it and suddenly things seemed a little clearer.

I just hoped I was jumping to mad conclusions again.

* * *

It took another hour for Adryan to leave the complex. Gemini seemed irritated the whole while, yet never said anything about it, once she knew what my plan was.

Honestly, I was lucky that Adryan even left the complex the same way I did. He didn't have any of his pokémon on him, but I could see he was on the phone. By the sounds of things, he had to be talking to Flannery, relating everything back to her.

Once he caught sight of me, he told her he'd called her back and scowled in my general direction. "What random, insane thing are you accusing me of this time?" he sighed more than said. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat and shook his head at me. "Because seriously, I've had enough. Didn't you get that from our last conversation?"

I said nothing. Instead I found myself surprised at just how much paler he looked in the sunlight. Bags under his eyes were visible, even beneath his glasses and his hair looked like it may have been thinning in random places.

He took my silence as a cue to get even more frustrated. "Seriously? Have you waited around to just stare at me? If this is the part where you confess your undying love, can we just skip that and realise that it just isn't going to happen?"

I scowled back at him and shook my head. Finally I sighed and walked a little closer towards him. "What have you done?" I asked, barely a whisper.

He folded his arms and leant back a little. "What am I being accused of this time?" he groaned.

"Ripper warned me away," I told him. His eyes widened just a little and I knew I was on the right track. "Then Gemini told me that Willow's a massive hypocrite – aiming to kill people that dare mean you harm. Yet apparently, she's doing the most to you. Something's off here Adryan. You might hate me, I don't know. I don't care. But dammit, tell me just what the hell you've gotten yourself into!"

He shrugged. "It's none of your damn business, that's what." He unfolded his arms and moved to walk past me. "Now do me a favour, won't you? That thing where I asked you to stay out of my life? Kindly do it."

I refused to budge. Something wasn't right and I wanted to know just what it was. "What's Willow doing Adryan?" I asked. Though inwardly, I already knew the answer. It was the only possible option. "Just what has she done? Is it something to do with how you're apparently doing more to save the world than me?"

He said nothing. He moved to walk past me again and turned his head away when I blocked him. Finally I shouted, "Just what the fuck's going on?"

"Willow's been helping me," he said, still facing away. "The world needs saving, doesn't it? And let's face it, you were completely clueless about it. So I figured that maybe, you needed some outside help."

I shook my head and took an involuntary step backwards. "No. No Adryan, don't tell me you were stupid enough to do something like that!"

He shrugged and offered a false grin. "You had no idea about the future. You had no psychic that would tell you about it. You needed help. I'm just one person, what does it matter if I cut my life a little short, if it means saving the world?"

"You _idiot!"_ I screamed at him. "This was my damn task! Why the hell would you interfere with it? If anyone should get a brain tumour, it should be me!"

"And that's what this is all about, isn't it?" he growled. "'Me, me, me'. It's all you ever go on about. You need help in this! What else were you going to do? Run around, killing random Elites until something happened? So yeah, I got Willow to show me glimpses of the future. That way, I knew what to really expect. I only got the idea when Oth shared your memories with me. Some things make sense. Others don't. But what was I supposed to do? Sit around and twiddle my thumbs while one of my friends comes closer to evaporating into thin air or something?

"That's the general idea, yeah!" I fought the urge to punch him for being such an idiot. Instead I ended up pacing through the ash. "So what if I'm selfish in the regard that I want to do things so that my friends don't end up getting hurt!" I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "How long. How long do you have left?"

"Geez." He snorted and rolled his eyes. "You make it sound like I'm gonna wither away and die this instant. I'll develop it when I'm about forty or something. I wasn't stupid enough to keep linking until I developed one then and there."

I dropped into a squat and just stared at the floor. "Why? Why the hell would you even bother doing something like this?"

He gave me a look that clearly said the answer should be obvious. "I'm your friend. Granted, I'm still pissed at you for killing everyone and generally fucking everything up, but I still want to try and help."

"So, as long as you're my friend, you're going to end up killing yourself to help save the world?"

He rolled his head from side to side and grinned a little. "Well, generally I'd help because you know, saving the world, it's a big deal. But after all, what're friends for? Course I'll keep helping. Like it or not."

It all added yet more mazes into my already turned-around mind. If he was willing to do something like that, because he was still my friend, I told myself I had to make him hate me. He seemed to want to live a normal life, back in the complex, when he was busy screaming at me. I wanted to stop him from killing himself, but I couldn't think of any way that I could convince him peacefully.

So my mind came up with what was possibly the stupidest idea of them all.

"You can't keep helping me," I told him. "You're killing yourself. I'm the one that's meant to vanish or stop existing or whatever!"

He sighed and pressed his hands onto his hips. "And that means you have to hold the fate of the world on your shoulders? I might be pissed at you for everything you've done. I might disagree with you on a lot of things. But I'm still going to help you save the world. I can't let one of my friends go through that alone."

"Don't!" I hissed at him. "Don't hurt yourself anymore. My pokémon have already died. Mia's died. Everyone around me dies. I'm sick of it! That's why I need to do this on my own! At least if it's just me, I won't make anyone else suffer!

"You've been asking me for favours, now I want you do one for me. You need to get the hell out of my life. Stop trying to help. Just go and live your own damn life!"

He shrugged. "You're not convincing me. So I might get hurt. I've already cut short my life span, what else can really happen?"

And just like that, my temper shot and I said the one thing I thought would convince him to stop. "Everything's already happened. Your pokémon are warning me away and one's already died since you started trying to help me!"

His face went blank at the mention of his rapidash. "That wasn't anything to do with you though. I sorted out the creep that did that, remember?"

"That's the thing, you didn't!" My heart was racing and my throat was dry, but I had to say what I was thinking. Just so I could put him off trying to help me. "It wasn't that man that killed her! Just like I was trying to tell you! It… it was Lacey."

"What."

I stumbled back from the cold fury in his voice and tried to keep up with myself. Gemini sat a ways off and I could hear her voice niggling at the back of my brain, telling me just what a moron I was.

"Lacey killed her! I don't know why but what I do know is that if you didn't hang round with me, that wouldn't have happened!"

His whole face darkened and his hands clenched into fists once more. "Don't. Don't you dare try and use something like that for your own gain."

"Well tough, because that's what actually happened!"

I was expecting the punch that came next.

What I wasn't expecting was that it would floor me and chip one of my teeth.

I coughed and shook my head, stunned and unable to pull myself off the ground. "Don't you see? One of your pokémon already died from you trying to help me. You've pretty much cut your life in half. You said before you wanted me out of your life. Well I'll never bother you again if you never try and do something so stupid again!"

He was trembling all over. I wasn't sure if it was fear or anger. All I knew was that it was spelling danger for me.

"You lied," he growled. "You damn well carried on acting as if nothing had ever happened, all the while!"

"Well what would you have done? Lacey's _my_ pokémon! Do you think I'd let you have your revenge on her? Like you'd have done that!"

He picked me up my collar and hit me again. My ears ran and I was vaguely aware that a bruise was already forming on my face.

"Don't you dare," he hissed. "I can understand why you kept it a secret. But you didn't have to damn well say it in such a way! I… I…" He shook his head, dropped me and walked away. "Just stay out of my life. Because the next time I see you, I'm not sure whether I'll kill you or not."

I said nothing as I watched him walk away. I told myself that I'd done the right thing – made him hate me, so that he didn't try to help me.

Really, I think that was the thing that pushed him over the edge.


	50. Indecision

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Indecision**

* * *

_Fate is a misconception, it's only a cover-up for the fact you don't have control over your own life ~ _Anon

**-O-O-O-**

"_I hate having to wait for back up. At its core, it basically means one thing; you're not good enough to get the job done yourself. Added to that, you're always vulnerable while you're waiting. Better to go out in a blaze of glory than dying in a corner, waiting for someone else to find you an hour after you've died."_

- Commander Flite. War hero. Solider. _(Exact date unknown)._

**-O-O-O-**

For what felt like the thousandth time, I sighed to myself and ran my tongue along my teeth. There was definitely a chip in one of them, small enough that I didn't think it would be noticeable, but big enough so that I'd noticed it. And of course, once I had, I couldn't forget it was there.

"This sucks," I said into my hands. "We should be doing something."

_[Then why aren't we?]_

I threw a glare at Gemini, who stood by my side, smiling condescendingly back at me. I shook my head to wave away the annoyance I felt and returned to staring at the floor. "I told Marsha we'd meet her here. She has information on that dead guy; it sounded like something big. So if we want to keep her on our side, we might as well play nice for a little while."

Gemini seemed to shrug as she turned around to face the indistinct rock wall that held the entrance. _[So why do we wait outside, rather than scouring the inside once more? Surely it would do us more good to understand what we have already discovered?]_

"Because…" I started, but quickly found I didn't have the words to follow up with. "Because, well, I just don't really want to go back in there. What can we really gain from looking at chunks of pokémon? I can't understand the language everything on the computer has been written in and I haven't the first clue about trying to understand how people died, save the obvious injuries."

_[So basically, you are useless for now.]_

My head snapped up at the harsh bluntness of her statement, though I finally nodded my head. "Pretty much. I know how to kill things. Understanding how things have been killed? Not so much. Not unless it's obvious. I didn't even see any tracks or anything in there. So whatever did it either cleaned up after itself, or somehow floated through the place and shredded pokémon to pieces."

It took about another five minutes before I grew restless and began tapping my feet against the floor. Less than a minute after that I pushed myself off the ground and aimed towards the complex once more.

"I'm bored of waiting," I explained. "Even if I find nothing, it's better than sitting around, twiddling my thumbs."

Gemini said nothing as we made our way back into the complex. Scar didn't seem pleased with being used to just open doors again, though once he had done so I returned him to his ball again. The halls were still as light as before with not a single flicker to be found. I ran my fingers along the walls and wondered just how the electricity in the place was still working so perfectly after such a long time.

And for another thing, just how they managed to build such a large place without anyone knowing about it.

"There's no marks on the walls," I commented as I walked. "I would have thought there would be more. Some sort of sign that there was a fight or something. No scorch marks, no frozen patches, no collapsed walls or anything. It just looks like somehow, the pokémon in here all got killed without realising something was attacking them. Just how the hell exactly would that be able to happen anyway?"

Gemini looked around the halls, sniffed at the air and huffed. _[I do not know. Even ghostly pokémon generate an aura, of sorts, that other ghosts and those of darkness could sense. Nothing but some of the strongest pokémon could possibly do all this unseen.]_

The smell of the pokémon chunks hit me once more. "What about celebi?" I said as I pressed a hand over my face. "Time travel around everything, blink into existence and rip everything apart, then disappear again before anything realises something has happened?"

Gemini shook her heads. _[Such an act expends a lot of energy. It is how other pokémon first noticed The Celebi – they would sense large bursts of energy somewhere nearby, then it would appear before them. If time travel required no conscious input, it would require no energy. But it would also mean they would be forever warping through time, unable to guide where they are going or how long they stay for.]_

"What about the time-space pokémon from Sinnoh?" I tapped my hand against a wall, found it to be solid and decided that fake-walls hadn't assisted in the massacres. "Could they have had something to do with this?"

Gemini glanced around the halls and snorted. _[Hardly. Neither of them would fit in these halls. Likely it was something smaller, but equally as powerful. Perhaps it held a key.]_

I stopped and swung around to face her. "A key? What do you mean by that?"

Her tail tried to bite me as I got close. As quickly as I backed away she shook her head and trotted on ahead. _[I cannot say much more. It is too dangerous.]_

"Well what if you're right?" I shouted at her. "Don't you think leaving out something as vital as that, something that might lead to a weakness will hinder us?"

She stopped, dropped her head and sighed loudly. After a long moment she pulled herself back up and turned to face me. _[Fine. I will share with you this knowledge. But you must promise not to tell another.]_

I nodded quickly. "Sure. Won't say a thing to anyone."

She looked like she didn't believe me in the slightest. I couldn't blame her. _[Okay,]_ she said and sat down on the floor. _[The keys… are aspects of power. With them, acts of power can be achieved that were never thought possible. Within the many species of pokémon, there are always fights for the final key; the power that cycles.]_

I slid down against the wall and raised an eyebrow at her. "You do realise you're going to have to explain that in a bit simpler terms?"

Both the eyes on her tail and in her head rolled at me. _[You have heard of Arceus, correct?]_

I nodded. "The thing that a lot of people see as a pokémon god, right? A lot of people worship it too."

_[They're wrong. But also somewhat right. Have you ever wondered why the myths surrounding it say that it forged the universe with a thousand arms?]_

"I've heard about that, somewhere," I said. I couldn't remember where exactly, but it always struck me as strange. Especially when they showed the picture of it next to the text.

_[That is because Arceus is not the true god. You see, like humans, pokémon also try to achieve the highest power they can. There is no higher than having godlike power. Thus, every millennia or so, the current god is challenged for leadership. The last battle occurred between Arceus and The Regigigas, just over a millennia ago.]_

"The regi-what?" I asked. It was new to me. I hadn't heard of such a creature and wondered just what it was meant to be, aside from a former god.

_[Regigigas,] _she said flatly. _[It is bound in a temple in Sinnoh and due to losing the godlike power, it now takes a while to move and operate at full strength. A thousand years ago, roughly, it was The Regigigas who was the god of pokémon and decided to make the presence of pokémon known to humans. After that, Arceus challenged for leadership and won. The Palkia, Giratina and Dialga were all created by the original god, though they obey whatever creature currently holds the power of one.]_

I scratched my head as I tried to process it all. "So something's done all this, potentially with something that makes it as powerful as a god of pokémon? That's totally reassuring. I'm actually not sure whether I prefer the thought of that, this all being done by a massively powerful pokémon or if it's by a group of humans." I pushed myself off the little wall and dusted my hands off. "I guess it doesn't really matter, either way. People are going to find out whatever's behind this. So since they're going to find out about it, why don't we just concern ourselves with our objective?"

Gemini snorted and flicked her ear at me. _[A smart suggestion. I was beginning to think that you were attempting to get away from this path.]_

I shook my head at her and followed the smell to the pile of pokémon pieces. "You can read my mind. You'd know before I do if I'm really planning on running away from that thing. Rest assured, I'm not going to. It's screwed up my life and everything I do now just causes more hurt. I'll be glad when this is all over, one way or the other."

_[I suppose-]_ Gemini stopped and stood rigid still, staring off into the corridors and seemingly through the wall. _[There's someone here.]_

I had my gun in my hand almost instantly. Lacey's poké ball felt like a heavy weight on my chest as I weighed up my options for everything. "Do we know them?" I asked in a whisper.

Gemini shook her head. _[I've never met them before.]_

I grumbled a few curse choices to myself and had her direct me to the person she sensed. I knew it wasn't going to be someone intent on bringing the former occupants of the base back to life, but I had no idea whether they were related to the bodies or not.

Cue my surprise when I found Flannery crouched behind the human bodies. A tall blaziken was stood behind her, holding up a bag full of what seemed to be medical equipment and guiding a torch light over the bodies.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her.

She jumped and her blaziken moved into attack me all in one moment. Then out of nowhere a blue translucent wall appeared between us both. The blaziken stopped in front of it, dropped its bag and went to kick it, only to stop at a quick command from its trainer.

"I'm the gym leader in Lavaridge; this place falls under my protection and jurisdiction," Flannery said, standing up and placing her hands on her hips. For the first time I noticed the plastic gloves on her hands and the little covers over her shoes. "The better questions are who the hell are you and what the hell are _you_ doing here?"

I holstered my gun and waved for Gemini to drop her barrier. As the blue faded from the air, I stepped a little closer and stopped as soon as the blaziken looked like it was about to punch my face off. "I'm investigating this place," I said as I fished for Marsha's badge. "Helping a friend out." I showed her the badge, handed it to her pokémon on her instruction and let her scrutinise it close up. "I've already been through here with Ad- the gym trainer that first found this place."

"You're Unova investigations?" she asked, clearly unconvinced as she tossed me back the badge. "You don't seem it. Your accent's not right. And you look familiar too."

I shrugged. "We fought in your gym for a badge. You pretty much trounced me."

She stared at me for a long moment, but nothing registered in her face. "Sorry," she said finally. "Don't recognise you. I fight like twenty-odd challengers a day, minimum. Faces are kinda hard to recall unless you've got something that pulls you out of a crowd. No offence."

"None taken." I inched closer towards the body pile, found my way blocked once more and glowered at the obstructive pokémon. It met me with a flat glare until Flannery called it off. It gave me one final, sharp, pointed look before it picked up its fallen bag and leapt over the pile of bodies, returning once more to Flannery's side. "So… what're you doing?" I asked her.

"Trying to figure out what did this," she told me. "I wasn't always a gym leader," she said at my surprised look. "I used to be a pathologist. One of the people that cuts up the dead bodies to find out what happened to them. Then Gramps retired and I got let go due to budget cuts, so it was just the easiest job to get into. A few years later, I'm the gym leader, in charge of so much more than I ever thought I would be, known by even more people and somehow still performing my old job."

"Right," I grunted as I crouched on the opposite side of the scattered bodies. "I'm just a pokémon trainer. And a former soldier. I know how to kill things while you know how to figure out how I did so."

She looked up and grinned at me. "Curious." Her gaze dropped instantly and she slipped a pen out of her back pocket. "That one there – the one with dyed blue hair – there's no signs of struggle, or anything. The others all have skin or blood under their nails, but given the marks on their heads, it looks like they'd have gotten them from scratching at their heads."

I followed where she was pointing. Sure enough, almost every corpse had little scratch marks hidden by their hair.

"Whatever did all of this, it looks like it somehow attacked the brain." She stood up and opened the eyelids of one of the corpses. "Their eyes are all bloodshot, like they burst a blood vessel. Or quite a few, considering that they seem like they also bled out through their ears. And their noses, eyes and mouths. I'd venture a guess and say they bled out through their other orifices too."

I frowned and decided I definitely wasn't going to check to see if she was right. "So you can't just look at it and figure out how one of them died?"

She laughed. "No chance. Television makes it seem like that sometimes, but there's a load of different circumstances which can cause death. Right now, it seems like their brains were overloaded and shut down by psychic interference. It's almost definite, but there'd need to be blood tests, a full post-mortem examination and a psychic scan too." She sighed and smiled in reminiscence. "Whenever I get to do this, I always end up missing my old job."

"So why'd you just go to being a gym leader then?"

She shrugged and looked down at the bodies. "It was the only way I could get a job at the time. Better to do that than sitting around all day doing nothing. Then I liked it, so I kept with it. Besides, as much as I did like figuring out what killed people, it wasn't always nice. It's hard not to be a little affected when you have kids on your table."

I found I couldn't say anything to that. Instead I just turned away to face Gemini instead. "So, reckon a psychic did all of this? You said the pokémon could have been caused by that."

I could hear Flannery lean in closer. "The pokémon? What's up with them? I haven't looked at them – I know how to deal with human bodies, pokémon I tend to be clueless on. Are they in the same state?"

I shook my head and turned back to face her. "No. These ones here are different. These are… _whole._"

It took a moment, but she understood and turned a little green in the gills. "Oh," she said, flatly. "So, uh, is their much-"

"It looks like they were put in a massive blender."

"Lovely." She picked off her gloves and tossed them in the bag her pokémon was holding. "Well, I'm not looking into that. Your psychic tell you anything yet?"

_[I'm certain I should feel insulted that she thinks I belong to you.]_ I gave the girafarig a flat looked and folded my arms as I waited for her to give me the answer to my question. _[Possibly. It feels the same here as it did with the pokémon. Except… here I can sense something. Faint but… something. Like an emotion, though I am unsure as to what one.]_

"So, possibly psychic then?" She nodded her head and I rubbed my temples in both anger and disappointment. Anger that it was all we had to go on. Disappointment that it was a psychic and nothing a bit more specific to hunt down. "Looks like we're hunting a psychic pokémon," I said to Flannery. "Or someone in control of one. Or a team of them. Either way, whatever was behind this; it's psychic."

"Brilliant," Flannery groaned. "So that means when I get home, I'll have to call the twins and Jessica too. Drafting in all the gym leaders I can, just to figure this out." She sighed and ran both her hands through her hair. "You said you already met my gym trainer?"

I nodded and decided to tread very cautiously, just in case she'd heard something about me from Adryan. "Yeah. Why?"

"I'm gonna be busy," she said as she pointed into her bag for something. Her blaziken nodded and handed her a pad of paper which she quickly scribbled something onto. "Can you take this to him? I've written his address on the back, it won't be hard to find it. His name's Adryan. Just drop this through his letterbox. I'll ring him to make sure he gets the message, but there's no harm in giving him three messages as opposed to one."

"Drop it through the guy's letterbox, got it," I said quickly. "I'll make sure he gets it."

"Thanks. Drop by the gym if you find anything else out; I'll be there if you need anything else."

"Yeah, sure thing." I gave her a quick nod and motioned for Gemini to follow me back out of the complex. All the while, I wondered what strange twist of fate would be cruel enough to make me have to visit Adryan's home after attempting to sever all ties with him.

* * *

The trip back to Lavaridge felt like it passed far too quickly. Granted, I had sped up in the vain hope that if I delivered the letter faster, it would get me away from potentially bumping into Adryan, but it still felt like no time had passed before I was standing right outside his house.

It was a nice, cosy little place near the western outskirts of the town, half built into the encroaching mountainside and practically the same colour as it too.

I took a deep breath and prepared to sneak up to the front door and drop the letter off. Belatedly, I realised that I could have just never shown up to the house and pretended that I had dropped the letter off. Something in me told me that Flannery might have found out if I did and it would hinder us working together.

I blamed Gemini for such thoughts.

She snorted behind me and sat down on the street. _[Hurry up and get this over and done with.]_

"What do you think I'm doing?" I bit back at her. I moved a little bit closer to the house, all the while treating it like it might stand up and try to eat me.

Only a little late did I realise the front door was wide open.

I froze as soon as I noticed it and felt my heart race just a little faster. I wasn't sure whether it was fear for myself or the many different reasons the door could be wide open that made my stomach drop. The fact that it was wide open and that I couldn't see anyone inside left me feeling a little worried.

I knocked on the front door and poked my head in, just to check for signs of life. It smelt like food was cooking somewhere within, though I still couldn't see anyone inside. Taking the smell of food to mean there was someone in, I slipped the note into the letterbox and decided I'd ask Gemini to scan the house.

I made it all of three steps away when I heard, "What the fuck are you doing _here?_"

I froze, caught and wondered if I could run away and somehow make him forget that I was ever there. I turned around slowly, shrugged and gave Adryan the best poker face I could manage. "Flannery asked me to drop off a note for you. I did it."

He sighed as he took the note and scanned it over. "Fine. Now get lost. I say I want you out of my life and you show up on my doorstep. If Flannery ever asks you to drop off a note, next time, remind her that thirteen answerphone messages, six texts and three e-mails are more than enough to let me get the message."

I said nothing. I nodded like a moron and turned tail to get away as quickly as I could. Instead I heard him sigh and tell me to wait there. I stood frozen on the street in front of his house, half wondering if he was going to get something big and heavy to throw at me, or just to find a pokémon he could set on me.

It turned out the latter was accurate.

Except in a way I'd have never imagined.

Out of the house stepped a tall, green and white figure. It strode towards me with purpose, yet at the same time, with a hint of shame. Its head was bowed down and I could see the hesitation in its posture as it stood still in front of me.

Finally, reality broke my shock. "_Alistair?_ What… how… why…" I groaned and slapped my head, "Just… what are you doing here?"

It was strange to see the gallade so uncomfortable and embarrassed. I was used to him being sure of things and dealing with everything with an appearance of stoicism.

_[I… I found Master Adryan shortly after I left you,]_ he said, still refusing to raise his head to me. _[I acted rashly that day… I came back to apologise to you when I realised my folly, sir. Except, you were no longer there, but instead Master Adryan was.]_

I folded my arms and just stared at him. I honestly didn't know what to say. Too many things were rushing around in my mind, though seeing him made me remember our last conversation. It brought back all the pain of Xander's death. I wasn't sure I could deal with that pain again.

_[I… I realised you had left. I wanted to follow after you; to trace your signature. But I realised that I had to help Master Adryan too, sir, rather like I tried to help you when we first met. I am afraid I have failed on both tasks.]_ He bowed low, his head almost touching the floor and he spread his arms out. _[I gave my word to help in both tasks. I have broken my word. I ask for penance, sir.]_

I stood there, speechless and unable to even think. Finally I rubbed my temples with a hand and sighed at him. "Stand up Alistair. I have no idea what you're on about. I remember you saying you'd help me when we first met, but you never really clarified what that was about. And I take it you're not going to tell me what you're helping Adryan with?"

He shook his head, though still not meeting my eyes. I realised, belatedly, that what I thought was embarrassment was shame. _[I cannot sir. Just like I never revealed your secrets to him, I shall not reveal his to you. All I can tell you is that I failed to stop him harming himself.]_

"You…?" I shook my head and laughed a little. "I know what you're talking about. I bumped into him the other day. I realised he dabbled in the whole seeing into the future to help things out. I told him the truth about his rapidash's death, just so that he'd hate me and wouldn't try to help anymore. Too many people have died already, Alistair. I can't let him give himself brain tumours and a few months to live just to help me."

Alistair finally looked me in the eyes. I could still see his shame in them, but also a little respect. _[Such actions are why I sought to help you, sir. You do have honour, even if you refuse to admit it to yourself. I… I apologise, from the bottom of my heart for my actions that night. I was grieving. I read Xander's mind before he died and saw everything from his perspective. I… I failed to realise that I should have seen both sides of the story before I acted. I realise now, that the way he saw things was not the way you intended events to happen. I acted rashly, sir and… I can only apologise for my actions.]_

He looked more than a little surprised when I replied with a flat, "Great." He stepped back as if he'd taken a blow and his mouth flapped like a magikarp out of water, constantly searching for words, but all that came out were a few unintelligible growls and hisses.

"Alistair, you pretty much renounced all ties to me. You blamed me for something that hurt me more than you, all because you'd read his mind and used that as the entire story. And you're _sorry?_" I burst out laughing at it all. "And now I realise just how futile a word that is. The amount of times I've said it for my fuck ups… it doesn't make a difference. It's just a word… it means nothing." I sighed and shook my head at him. "You're sorry. Good for you. Now that you feel better about that, go back to Adryan. You renounced your ties to me; you decided to help him. Now carry on with that, because I'm not really sure how much I trust you."

He reacted like he'd taken another blow, but he pressed on regardless. _[I know that actions are better than words, sir. I have told you I seek penance for my actions. I have failed in helping Master Adryan. Allow me to continue attempting to help you. The others; our partners, they hurt, sir. You do not realise how much you pain them by cutting yourself off from them. We were a team – a family. I do not know how it is for humans, sir, but for a pokémon, a family – a clan – they are its strength. It is why we work so well in teams with humans. We fight alongside them, we grow with them and share the happiest times of our lives. Refusing to treat us as no more than tools hurts us as much as a physical blow to the heart would, sir."_

His words struck me at my core, but I still tried to ignore them as best I could. "Alistair… I don't know if I can be that family-like around you guys again. Xander's death… it hurts more than anything. I don't want that to happen again and I don't want you guys to hurt this much if I die. It's just… easier, this way."

There was an awkward silence between us. I half-expected all my pokémon to burst out of their poké balls and start a really weird group hug. Instead… there was just silence.

_[You hurt sir, I understand that.]_ Alistair took a step towards me and spread his arms out. _[But understand me when I say this; events are coming to a close. You will need all the allies you can. Things are changing – even a creature with limited psychic abilities such as myself can sense that. Allow me to help you, sir. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a situation where you regret refusing help.]_

I shuddered, like his words had hit my brain in a way other than telepathy. He sounded so convinced of everything that it unsettled me. "Don't you have to let Adryan know you're leaving or something then?"

His face broadened in a smile. _[He already knows. If you were not to allow me to help you sir, I would have simply followed and helped regardless.]_

"Alright," I said. "I suppose you can help out again. I'll try to fill you in on everything that's happened, but it might take a little while. It'll be easier if Gemini explains a few things too." I checked my phone and found a message from Marsha I'd missed. She was finally in Lavaridge and from the looks of the number of missed calls I had from her, she wanted to contact me in a hurry.

Definitely a hurry when we walked a little bit up the road and found her running towards us. Her face was bright red and sweat dripped from her forehead. It looked like she'd ran the entire length of the town several times over. Behind her a jynx glided through the air, floating soundlessly behind her.

"_Finally_!" she growled, breathless. "I found out a few things about our friend's death. Turns out what we thought was behind it _definitely_ did it."

I felt my eyebrows raise into my hairline. "So, you mean-?"

"Yeah." She nodded and leant on her knees, catching her breath. "It's behind his death. But we need to move fast. The dusknoir I borrowed? It took off about an hour ago. She said something about how its moving towards the Cluster and just teleported there to help Wally."

My throat suddenly felt as dry as a desert. "It's going there? With Wally… and the others?"

"Yeah, so we need to move quickly!" She grabbed my arm and took one of her jynx's hands in the other. "I've got a chopper just outside town waiting for us. Couldn't teleport straight towards you; never been here before. The gallade yours? Get it to hold your other arm and your girafarig too. We've got no time to waste."

It seemed like I'd barely even nodded when everything fizzed out of existence. I felt like I'd left most of my insides back on the street and landed almost instantly on bright green grass. Everything spun around me, split into doubles and triples and made no sense in my head. I didn't even have time to rest as we had to quickly file into the helicopter, recall our pokémon, convince Gemini to go into a poké ball to make the journey – which was anything but easy – and buckle in for the flight.

By my side, Marsha was as white as a sheet. "Is there anyone else helping us?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't know anyone else that can help in Hoenn. Too much risk. I know a couple of people that could help back in Unova, but the strongest of them are busy investigating something else right now. We're all Wally's got as backup until the Elites and gym leaders can help out too."

I didn't say a word back to that. All I could think about were the horror stories Adryan had told me about the Cluster and how dangerous it was.

Turns out, what he said was nothing short of an understatement.


	51. Primal

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Primal**

* * *

_Have you run your fingers down_

_The wall_

_And have you felt your neck skin crawl_

_When you're searching for the light? __~ Steve Harris_

**-O-O-O-**

"_Cerulean Cave. Mount Silver. The Origin Cluster. Stark Mountain. All closed off from the public for good reason. Places humans forgot. Places human feared. For the only things that live down there now are worse than anything your nightmares could ever dream of."_

- Lance Eldritch, 41st Kanto League Champion, Kanto Elite Four member 2990 – 3003, Johto World Champion 3003 – 3006.

**-O-O-O-**

Given the horror stories I'd heard about the Cluster, I half expected there to be a series of caves and towers lining the distance, with an ever-present thunderstorm looming behind all of them and bathing the area in pale flashes of lightning.

I got some of it right, at least.

Marsha slid open the door of our helicopter, leant out of the window and pointed towards a large tower in the distance. Even from so far away I could still see it was crumbling, easily several hundred years old and yet somehow still standing, despite all logic saying that it should probably be piles of rubble on the floor.

"That's the Sky Pillar," she said. Over the headphones, her voice came out clear, almost like there weren't two metallic blades rotating faster than I could see above us. "It's meant to be home to The Rayquaza. I always thought it was total bull, but Wally said him and the others went there and found it resting atop. It would have eaten them, if they didn't have the orbs. When it saw them, Wally said it stopped instantly, sniffed them all and then just suddenly took off towards Sootopolis."

I moved as close to the edge as my seatbelt would allow and stared out at the tower as we approached it. "So, what does this have to do with us then?"

She gave me a sharp look that could probably wither a gyarados' rage. "That's where we're getting in. The other entrances tend to be on the ocean somewhere, in little caves that we'd have to search a while for. This way's more direct; through the tower, head into the basement levels and then below sea level is our way in. This way's best. The pokémon in there are strong. 'Abandon all hope ye who enter' strong. We can't afford to tire out our pokémon by riding them here."

I felt a little shiver of fear at her words. "So Wally and the others… they're strong enough to hold their own in there, right?"

"Usually, yeah." She nodded and seemed like she wanted to leap at the tower. "But you know what it's like; no matter how strong a trainer you are, if you have a bad day, you might end up dying to something like a rabid zigzagoon. Wally's been here before; he knows it's bad in there. Usually I wouldn't worry or be in such a hurry, but after what Crazy Ivan told me and then Wally's dusknoir just up and chasing after him, I'm more than slightly on edge."

I sighed and fell back into my seat. "This is going to be fun. We're going to end up running from almost every pokémon we find, you know this, right?"

She nodded. "We can take a few, if we team up. I'm strong enough to hold my own as a gym leader, remember? You were one of my top trainers there too. So we can beat the weakest in there with some effort; maybe some of the average strength pokémon in there too. We come across anything tough? Best bet is to hide, or just incapacitate it and run."

I ran over a list of possible pokémon in my head and the ways we could probably do hard damage to them. "Caves and tunnels, right? Means crobat, golem, claydol and their families, right?"

She grunted. "Not just them. Dusknoir, banette, wobbufet, exploud, salamence and nosepass to name a few. Whatever we see, they're going to be the best of the best; it's the toughest environment they can live in down there. I'm sure you've heard the stories; toxic clouds, acidic rivers, next-to-no light. Lots of other things too. It's the best test of strength there is and naturally the most dangerous."

I laughed nervously to myself as we began to land. "So tell me; why the hell would anyone want to go into one of these places then? It all sounds like reasons to run away real fast to me."

She shrugged. "Dunno. Never been in them myself. Strong pokémon, harsh environments, anything likely to kill you at any given moment… I supposed it's like acting out a horror story. Adrenaline pumping and fear inducing. In addition to the whole throwing your pokémon against things that they're going to learn heaps from. Outside of trained pokémon, these are the strongest ones you're ever likely to see."

"What about the others? Like what we're after?"

She rolled her eyes. "I said likely to see. Those sorts of things… a whole family can go through the generations and never see one." She sighed as the helicopter touched down on the ground and the blades above us began to slow down. "Finally, we're here!" She leant forwards and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "Thanks for this Terry. I owe you one." She was already half way out the door when she called back over her shoulder, "Say hi to your wife for me!"

I jogged after her, putting on a little speed to catch her up. "Where do we go from here?"

"Up ahead," she said without breaking stride. "We need to get into the tower itself. Then hit the lower levels. Hopefully we've got enough gear on us; I don't really wanna be there too long. Ideally we'd find them today, but something tells me we might be in there a while. A week at most, hopefully."

"A week? In there?" I looked up at the tower and felt my stomach flip flop inside my body. "Great." Dimly I realised we'd landed and quickly released Gemini from the poké ball. Once she appeared, she looked around the environment, snorted and glared back at the helicopter.

_[That… was not as unpleasant as I feared it would be,]_ she admitted. She cantered alongside Marsha and I, understanding the need for haste almost instantly. _[I suppose you brought up valid points before; the device does enable me to travel without obstructions, such as in that transport you just took. It also should allow me to retreat and hide, if things become bad in this environment. I do not wish to be knocked unconscious and have my body dragged through the dirt as you race away from something wishing to eat you.]_

I gave her a smile. "As if I'd waste time dragging you. Something was gonna eat me and I couldn't get you into a poké ball in quick time? I'd be outta there almost instantly."

_[I'd say I was offended, but I expect as much. I'd also likely do the same.]_

"That… doesn't make me feel much better about this whole thing."

"Could you be _quiet?_" Marsha hissed. She stopped in front of a big hole that seemed to serve as an entrance to the tower. She flanked one side, peered into the dingy, strangely not dust-covered inside and took a deep breath. "Alright," she whispered. "From here on in, we're gonna have to be quiet about everything we do. Things will still be able to hear us, but this way, we'll at least keep some of them away. No fire either. There's weezing that float around in there. Any flames get near one of those gas bags and we're lucky if there's much of us left."

"Even better news," I growled to myself. "So how the hell we gonna know where we're going? I don't have anything we can use to track our movements."

"Fuck!" she hissed. "I didn't think of that. Fat lot of good I am in trying to play rescue." She paced back and forth in front of the wall, cursing to herself. "Shit. Damn." Her hands went into her hair and pulled it in two different directions. "Right!" she declared finally, letting go of her hair. "We'll use our pokémon to scratch markings into the walls. Same height as our torches. They can scratch in arrows pointing at the way out. Sound good?"

I shrugged. "It's better than any idea I have. We could end up near Fortree though, right? Or Sootopolis?"

She nodded. "Anywhere that the Cluster links to."

"So that means they could be anywhere near an exit, or have already left them?"

"Maybe." She hissed and banged her head against the wall behind her. "I don't know. I just found out my cousin might be in danger and reacted. If not, then our target still headed here. Either way, we need to investigate."

"Right," I groaned. Then deciding enough was enough, I swung round the crumbling arch and into the tower itself. Green glazed glass still hung in some of the windows and ancient statues lined the walls and rooms. I couldn't tell what they were of, but my best guess was that they were meant to resemble something like a snake. Far above I could see the shapes of pokémon through the holes in the ceiling.

"This floor's clear," Marsha said as she crept into the room. I noticed for the first time a pistol on her side and another one carried in her hands. I didn't even have time to wonder where she'd got them from when she pointed forwards. "Up ahead. See that little corridor on the far side of the room? The stairs going down are through there."

_[We should hurry,]_ Gemini said into the back of my brain. _[The creatures in this tower are beginning to notice us.]_

I glanced at her, shot a look around us and saw the shadows slowly moving around the top of the stairs. "Marsha, we've got to move," I whispered. "We've been spotted. Gem, you go between us."

We filed out quickly towards our corridor. I understood then what Marsha meant; it was like living out a horror film. I was watching the shadows constantly. Every slight move. Every little noise. They were all around me. Moving in slowly, sticking to the shadows. Making us sweat and panic before they made their move.

Had Marsha not warned me it was going to get dark I would have panicked when suddenly all the lights went out. I felt like someone had tied a blindfold around my eyes and then shut me in a pitch black room.

A soft blue light slowly began forming around us. It formed a solid wall around us all, giving a little light and letting us see just how far into the darkness we'd gone. Already it was cold – I could see my breath fogging in front of me and the little traces of frost along the stone walls.

"Just gonna get tougher from here on in," Marsha said as she found and switched on her torch. I say we alternate our pokémon. Keep two out each, then every four hours we swap them over."

"Keep them fresh, right? Sounds good to me." I found my own torch and switched it on. All along the walls I saw little carvings. I couldn't make out any of the details, but there were little grooves and splotches of paint where carvings and drawings used to be. "What do you think this place was?" I asked.

I heard Marsha shrug behind me. "I haven't the faintest idea. It's old. Maybe older than that tower in the desert over here. Definitely older than the one in Unova."

"Well, maybe when this is all over, we can draft in a few archaeologists to investigate this place, huh?"

She grunted a humourless laugh. "Maybe. But I think the threat of imminent danger might be off putting to most. I only know two that would be strong enough to begin investigating in here. But they're tied up in other projects at the moment."

I sighed to myself and wondered just why we were continuing on with such aimless conversation. A part of me knew it was just to avoid the fear we both felt creeping through those tunnels, though the rational side of me was screaming at us for creating noise in a place we needed to be silent in.

Something echoed in the distance. It sounded like rocks falling over each other, hitting the ground harder and harder each time.

"Careful," I hissed. "That's either a little rock fall or a graveller or golem getting antsy and competing for something."

I caught the wide eyed stare Marsha graced me with. "How… just how do you know that?"

"Solider," I said, pointing to myself. "Learnt weak points on pokémon to stay alive."

She grunted an intrigued sound and stopped to evaluate me. "I've never heard of any of those task groups before."

I froze, unable to speak for a moment and stoking the flames in my brain, praying for an answer. "Uh, need to know basis. People don't want to know just how dangerous pokémon can be on a day-to-day basis, so it stays hidden away."

"Makes sense," she agreed, to my surprise. I blew out a silent breath and shot Gemini a look of gratitude. She pretended like she didn't know what I meant, but I knew that she had nudged me in the right direction for that answer. It was weird, to know that she could influence my thoughts and speech in such a weird, almost effortless way.

I felt around my bandolier until I came across Lacey's poké ball. In a flash of light she appeared in the narrow caverns with us. Her eyes burned bright yellow and scoped over the entire place before looking back to me. She seemed to be second guessing my sanity for ever stepping foot in such a place.

"We need to look for someone," I told her and nodded towards Marsha. "Her cousin. He's lost somewhere in here. Besides, that celebi might also be down here too, so we can't really pass up the opportunity to find it, can we?"

I didn't see her head move, but gathered by the movement of her eyes that she nodded. I bit my lip, thinking on something to say to her as Alistair's words played around in my mind. Everything I could think of just seemed to meagre and useless to actually voice. To my surprise, Lacey spun around and gave me an understanding look before skulking forwards a little in the dark.

Belatedly I remembered that she was also a mind reader. Without being able to communicate with her telepathically, I had completely forgotten about it.

"Marsha," I called after she had released her frosslass and a big pokémon that looked like a pig cross-bred with a gorilla. Flames spouted from its beard continually until Marsha warned it about the weezing, at which point they died out and left its face in darkness once more.

"That's an emboar," she said, thinking I was curious about her pokémon. "Their starter forms get given out in Unova; I started with one when I became a trainer."

"Not what I was wondering," I said with a shake of my head. "I was wondering if there's any way that I could understand pokémon, save from telepathy or something like that?"

She nodded. "Back in Unova, we've had translation collars for nearly twenty years. Only thing is that there are really harsh restrictions on them. The country's very isolationistic; they've got all these big restrictions on the pokémon you can bring in and take out of the country, as well as the technology. The collars are all different for the different sorts of pokémon too; they have to be built differently for a fire pokémon than a water one, for example. If you start off in a government programme, like when they give away the starters, you get one for free with your pokémon. Otherwise, you've got to buy one. The only way you can get one out of the country is if you know people in the right places, have enough money to grease the proper wheels, or if you just go under the radar. Or if you're a Champion, then they pretty much bend over backwards for you."

I frowned. "So… how hard would it be to sneak a few of them out of the country?"

She laughed. "Very. They're all built in with GPS – that way they know if one of them is taken out of the country. They've all got serial numbers too, so if you take out the GPS, they can track down who you are by the serial number. They're also region locked, like a load of video games and the like. Try and use it outside of Unova and it just won't work."

"Great," I growled. "Looks like I'll be stuck having to identify grunts and growls from now on then."

"'_Welcome to the world of pokémon'_, huh?" She laughed to herself and finally hissed for both her pokémon to stop moving. "Careful guys. The floor's weak around here. Don't want you falling into any acid pits."

Again I felt like I'd been filled with ice. I eyed the floor with new found fear and stepped with added caution, almost on my tiptoes. Every little shake or loss of balance I attributed to the floor about to fall away from underneath me and I very nearly gave myself a heart attack when I lost my balance and almost fell face first into the dark.

"Get up and keep moving!" Marsha hissed. Her tone betrayed how frightened she was, even if her face was good at hiding it. We were desperately out of our depth in the tunnels and we both knew it.

And that was before we'd even come across a wild pokémon.

We'd been walking in the tunnels, marking our way for about fifteen minutes when something leapt out of the dark and took down Marsha's frosslass in one hit. She swore and recalled the pokémon as we both froze and tried to see into the darkness.

Neither of us could see a thing.

But whatever it was could see us.

Marsha and I stood back to back, our pokémon circling us against the unseen threat. "Any ideas?" I said to Lacey, watching her from the corner of my eye.

She shook her head, hissed and leapt at something in the darkness. There was a scream of pain, the smell of blood and then another scream. I took a step closer towards them, only to have Lacey fly at me out of the darkness and nearly take my head off. She hit the wall behind me, slid down and lay at the bottom, stunned and drooling.

I recalled her quickly and eyed the darkness with more apprehension than ever. "We should really move," I whispered. "Whatever it is, it's too strong for us."

"Where do we move too though?" Marsha whispered back. "We've circled ourselves so many times now I don't know where we're looking at!"

I cursed and realised how true it was. Another hiss came from the darkness. We both leapt at it, pointing our guns and trying to see the unseen threat. A barrier sprung between us, shimmering with blue light. Behind it we saw bright green eyes watching us from the corners of the shadows.

"It's got yellow eyes," I said. "The blue's making them seem green. Something that can hide in the darkness, has yellow eyes and is strong enough to dispatch two of our pokémon single-handedly."

"Figuring out what it is isn't going to stop it from hurting us!"

"I know!" I bit my lip and tried to see it again. Gemini cried out and sunk to her knees, her barrier flickering in the air before us. I swore and realised it was strong enough to batter the barrier down. "Fuck finding out what it is. Get your pig to cover us. Gem will drop the barrier and we run in the opposite direction, alright?"

"Fliss, you heard him, right?" I felt Marsha move slightly, going towards her pokémon. "As soon as the barrier goes down, cover the escape, then run the hell after us, alright?"

A grunt told me it was ready. "Now!" I roared at Gemini. The barrier vanished from the world and instantly the thing in the darkness howled in joy. I felt heat come from my side, heard the sound of water and smelt flesh boiling even as I ran like crazy away from the thing. Marsha was behind me, panting loudly and Gemini behind her too, silent but for her hoofsteps. Another grunt and louder footsteps started behind us. I swore again, only for Marsha to reassure me it was only her pokémon.

We stopped running when we ran straight into a wall. I fell back off it, hit the ground and checked my nose to see how broken it was. Thankfully all I got out of it was a little trickle of blood running from my nose. Behind me Marsha wondered aloud if my back was made of stone and said that I needed to keep less hard, heavy stuff into my backpack.

We turned around just as flames burst into life in front of us. We both gasped, aimed our guns and realised it was just her fiery pig illuminating a little bit of the caverns for us. Marsha thanked it as I found our torches on the floor.

"Let's not do that again," I groaned as I handed her a torch. "I don't think my heart is cut out for it. Or any bit of my body. That wall hurt my stomach, my kidneys and my face."

"Suck it up," she growled and traced the walls with her hands. "We're in here now. The Celebi might be in here somewhere. More than that; my cousin's in here somewhere. That Celebi's killed people already; it might not go after Wally, but I don't want to take that chance."

"Fine, but remember that we're a pokémon down each." I felt around and found Loki's poké ball. He appeared with a hiss, sniffed the air and recoiled instantly. He skulked around the darkness, growled at something in the caves and hid behind my leg. "And given the way he's acting, I'd say there's something really powerful down here."

Marsha shot me a condescending look. "_Everything_ in here is powerful. We're bottom of the food chain here. And what's more; we're lost. _Brilliant._" She sighed and let out her weird snowflake pokémon with a flash of light. "I made sure to ask Wally where he was going anyway before he left. He sent me the coordinates of where he needs to investigate."

My face fell. "And you didn't mention this before, _why_?"

"Because the magneton and magnezone that stalk this place tend to throw off any sort of navigational equipment. There's a really strong electrical charge further in that can cause the magneton and nosepass to mutate and evolve quicker than normal. It also throws off all electrical devices. And the magne-family also manages to through off compasses, so we're still flying in the dark."

I felt like rolling my eyes in exasperation. I fiddled around in my pocket and found my pokédex, bumped, scratched and incredibly forgotten. I flipped it open and found the screen taunting me with a haze of static, proving its uselessness. I sighed, tried my phone, found the same results and groaned to myself. "Isn't there anything we could use? Surely there's got to be something that can resist the electrical and magnetic problems and still help us get there? Wally wouldn't have given you the coordinates if it was impossible to track, right?"

She folded her arms, sighed and shook her head. "You're right… but I just don't know! Give me a moment to think!"

"You work within the Unova government and they don't give you any sort of new technology to help you in these sort of situations?" I asked, disbelief coursing through my every word. "What sort of use is _that_?"

She glowered at me. "Well what about you then soldier? Being trained to know weak points on pokémon? You're telling me you never got given anything like that? Never learnt how to build anything like that?"

I flinched and looked away. "Alright. Let's not attack each other here. We need to think about this." I sighed and tried to focus on something. Anything that I could recall from my 'education' as it were. Building anything from scrap that I could find. Instead all I could get was a cloudy fog that floated around in my brain, covering anything that I needed or wanted to think about. "I can't think!" I growled and just stopped myself from hitting the wall in anger.

Marsha's head snapped round to me. "You too? I thought I was just stressing out. Something's stopping you from thinking?"

I froze there on the spot, nodded numbly and tried to think of an explanation. All I got was the same foggy haze again. I turned around and patted Gemini on the neck, to make sure she was there and I wasn't trapped in some weird sort of hallucination. "Gemini… it's not just us freaking out, is it?"

She shook her head. _[Something in this place is stopping all independent thought. Almost like its reaching out… trying to ensnare victims by their minds. I can feel it, trying to slowly convert me to its purpose.]_

I tried to process her words, only to meet the same foggy haze again. "She says something's sending out a signal or something… reaching out to alter our thoughts. Like it's trying to convert us all to one purpose."

Marsha swore. "Now I get it! People always wondered why every pokémon in these places seemed to be so aggressive. Whenever they see humans, it's like they suddenly hit a berserk button and go insane. There's been theories of a psychic field before, but no one's ever been able to find real proof in them."

"Why? And don't tell me it's because everyone ended up dead."

She shrugged. "Something like that. They can't really investigate these places, because the pokémon are too strong. Research teams just end up being buffet lunches for the pokémon in here. And because no one can get real proof, they end up not being believed."

"So what do we do then?"

_[Move from the signal,]_ Gemini whispered into my mind. _[I can feel where it is weaker. If we follow that, we can think once more.]_

I nodded. "And can you sense anyone nearby there?"

_[Not as of yet. Perhaps once we are closer. Right now… not only can I feel the call, but it is also blocking out most of my sense. We should head towards the weakest parts.]_ She flicked her ears, looked at the emboar and added, _[It would be wisest to recall those weaker to psychic signals. If this is one, it is likely they shall fall victim to it first.]_

"You're got a psychic, don't you?" I asked Marsha.

"Yeah," she said. "Why?"

"Let that out, recall your emboar. Gemini thinks this signal thing that's blocking our thoughts might be psychic in nature. If it is, your emboar will fall to it easier than our other pokémon."

She nodded, recalled her emboar and let out her jynx in its place. After sharing what seemed to be a telepathic conversation with the creature, she sighed and looked around to me. "You know good news? I wish I'd have some of that at some point."

I folded my arms and cocked my head. "Why?"

"Because she just confirmed everything you just said." She sighed, stopped and held up a hand. Dimly I realised we'd been walking all the while, slow little steps that made it seem like we weren't going anywhere. "Don't move. Pit."

I followed her torch trail to find nothing but deep black in front of her. Her snowflake pokémon floated above it, hissing down at something far below whilst her jynx stood to her side, eyes shining like it was using psychic power. "How the hell do people actually travel around in here on their own? I'm guessing that they don't usually have a powerful celebi somehow sending out psychic waves all through a network of caves."

"Who knows?" Marsha muttered. "Anyway, this way," she said, taking off to the east. "The signal's weaker this way, right?"

_[Technically it is weaker to the west. Though the east presents us with the only way to progress,]_ Gemini said to me. I gave her a smirk and carried on behind Marsha regardless. Loki was still skulking around my legs, slowly moving out further and constantly leaping back whenever there was a loud sound somewhere further in. It was almost like he knew how powerful the things were in there and instinctively knew to keep away from them all.

In my mind, it felt like I was wading through ever stronger swamps. The fog seemed to take over everything in my brain, to the point where it felt like I was doing everything on autopilot. Finally I had to make a conscious effort even to breathe, then abruptly it all lifted and I found I could think once more.

"Remind me not to do that again," Marsha said breathlessly. She took a step towards the walls, stopped and frowned up at them. "Something's wrong here. These walls… they're really… _really_ weird. Take a look."

I followed her gaze and went to touch the wall. Instantly she slapped my hand away, shook her head and just pointed to them. I traced the wall with my torch, finding nothing until I followed exactly where she was pointing to.

"Paintings?" I whispered incredulously. "People… people _lived_ down here?"

"Maybe." Marsha sighed and pointed to them. "They're really old, that's why I stopped you from touching them. Those friends I mentioned before; the archaeologists? One of them is pretty good with history. Learnt a lot about a lot through them… it's really weird how we stayed in contact. Anyway, it's widely known that the desert in the middle of Unova used to have an ancient civilisation that seemed to encompass the whole place. This friend of mine went on a few digs there; apparently they found a load of carvings down there of pokémon from as far away as Kanto. Not the ones that naturally appear in Unova either, but things like bulbasaurs and magikarp.

"Anyway, these paintings are a lot like the ones they found down there. The ones there were in worship of a really big dragon that looks like one of the trinity that's sometimes worshipped over there. There's a really long story there with pokémon liberation and holy dragons and everything, but that's for another time." She waved a hand and drew the paintings in the air with a finger. "So if I were to guess, I'd say that something powerful used to live around here. Maybe The Rayquaza… but this thing looks nothing like a long, emerald dragon, does it?"

I squinted at the picture and tried to see it just a bit better. I could make out people bending down on the floor, almost as if they were praying to something. There was a little blob floating above them – something that might have been green – with a little pink blob next to it. I followed the picture along to a new one, this time with the people at war with each other, seemingly. The painting above it had the green and pink blobs facing each other, almost like they were arguing. Something was there with them, but I couldn't see what it was. It was almost like whatever had been painted on had been scratched out and then painted over again.

Then finally the painting next to that was a big burst of faded reds and oranges, almost like a massive explosion. I followed the order of them and found it leading back to the little one of everyone fighting. Next to that was everyone face up on the floor, almost like they were dead. Then there was something that looked like fire, then a big black smudge.

"This is… really weird," I whispered. "I… what the hell is this?"

Marsha shrugged and leant in a bit closer. "They're usually stories, or warnings. They could be anything. But look at this!" She pointed at the green blob and then again to the other one elsewhere. "Green. It's always with a pink blob too. Celebi, it's green, isn't it? I've told you all the myths about Celebi, haven't I? Or at least, the ones relating to victini?"

I nodded, unable to think, more through shock and intrigue than the same weird fog. "What else is there?"

She pointed to Gemini. "Ask your girafarig. I found all this out from my psychic, maybe you should find out this from yours. You'll believe it that way."

I turned to Gemini expectantly. She sighed and walked slowly around me to face the paintings herself. _[You know that The Celebi were first tasked with maintaining time. They waged war against their protectors and achieved victory. After this… there was a divide amongst their ranks. Some thought they should use their new-found independence to alter the world as they saw fit. The others thought that they should continue to follow their first task. They split into the different factions that supported each theory and started a cold, civil war between each other. Nothing knows what side represents what ideal, but all is known is that the factions are divided by colour; one is green, the other pink.]_

I blew my hair from my face. "So we're looking at being smack bang in a civil war? Great. Our one happens to be green – I know that for sure. What side's it on?"

"Who knows?" Marsha sighed. "And wait, you know it's green? Have you seen it before or something?"

"Uh, yeah," I said quickly, fumbling for a new explanation. "I saw it with some kid ages ago. Long story short, the kid got killed and the celebi just up and vanished somewhere."

"It was a green one that killed Crazy Ivan. Maybe the same one." She folded her arms and started picking at a loose threat on her top's elbow. "This doesn't help us with anything… but it might not be a story. A warning! Or both!" She pulled out her phone, flipped through something in there and shoved a picture in my face. "Look at this!"

I took the phone off her and found myself looking at a new picture. It looked like three big dragons; one black, one white and one grey. They all seemed to be fighting, with something with a green head and one eye in between them all, holding up something at them all. "What is this?" I asked as I handed her back the phone.

"Something that was in those ruins in Unova. They found these like forty years ago. I went there a number of years ago, just after everything kicked off in Unova and found this; I took a picture and showed it to my friends – the archaeologists. They told me that some of the paintings were both warnings and stories." She slipped the phone back into her pocket and looked back to our current discovery. "This is apparently a warning of things that kicked off a little while ago in Unova. My friends have me a theory I completely support; even back then they could use psychic pokémon to see the future. They must have seen things to come, painted them on the walls to warn other people and then we've discovered them here and now."

"So what's this warning us about then? What might be two celebi causing the end of the world?" I snorted to myself. "Bit of a late discovery there."

Marsha forgot all about the painting as she whirled round on me. "What? What makes you say that? Is there something you're not telling me?"

I fought a smirk at her words. Instead I gently pushed past her and walked slowly further into the tunnels. "There's a lot. Like you're not telling me a lot. Maybe some other time, huh? Now… we really need to find your cousin, right?"

"Yeah," she said and quickly took back off into the tunnels. "Come on, we've got to make up for lost time. Damn this place and it's endless distractions."

* * *

We made it through what felt like the rest of the day with thankfully little other mishaps. We'd had to run from nearly every pokémon we'd found in the tunnels there – the only one we'd managed to defeat was a lone crobat, but even then it had taken the force of all four of our pokémon combined to finally knock it out. I was sorely tempted to capture it, but Marsha pointed out to me that if it took that much to knock it out in the first place, what were my chances of actually being able to train it and get it's loyalty?

I found myself unable to sleep when we finally settled down for the night. We'd found a little alcove in the rocks that we used as a camp, small enough that nothing should hopefully come across us, but far enough away that we could hopefully pack up and escape before something came too close.

Alistair was standing watch, with one of Marsha's pokémon. It was the big snowflake from before – a cryogonal as she told me. It had the habit of keeping our little campsite shielded with ethereal walls of light that Gemini could also produce. They wouldn't hold up long if something did decide to attack us, but it did give us a few valuable seconds to make our escape.

I rolled over in my sleeping bag and stared up at the dark ceiling. I couldn't make out anything different on the entire surface. Beside me, Marsha was snoring lightly and behind I could hear Gemini doing the same. Her tail was still snapping around at distant sounds, though thankfully quietly enough to not attract anything.

I groaned and pushed myself into a sitting position. I felt Alistair shift and turn around to face me. There was a long silence, almost like he was trying to think of something to say to clear the air, as it were. This time there wasn't any fog lingering around in our minds, so obviously he was just stuck for words.

"Regigigas," I whispered, hardly aware I was speaking aloud until I heard myself. I turned around and looked up at Alistair's eyes, glowing red in the dark. Eerie was an understatement. "Regigigas used to be the pokémon god, right?"

Alistair frowned, then shook his head. _[Not quite, sir. He had godlike power, but he was never a true god. He… ascended, I suppose you could say. May I ask; just how do you know this, sir?]_

I jerked my thumb behind. "Gemini told me. We were throwing around ideas when we found a load of pokémon and people that had been butchered. It looked like none of them knew what was happening. Long story short, I convinced her to explain some stuff to me about it all. So could any pokémon challenge for the whole leadership thing?"

The gallade stepped away from me, staring at something beyond our translucent barriers. Even as he did so, his voice rang in my mind, _[Yes and no. In theory, any pokémon could, but they would surely be defeated with ease. You see, sir, the pokémon that succeed in challenging for leadership usually have intense powers of their own. Regigigas is able to create golems out of ice, rock and stone. He conquered the previous god by use of these powers. There have been almost none that have managed to conquer through simple brute force alone.]_

"And arceus?" I asked expectantly.

Alistair seemed to tense at something. I held my breath, moving for my gun as complete silence ran around inside my head. Finally it past and even Alistair let out a breath. _[Arceus is… unique, in a way. Almost every pokémon can make illusionary copies of themselves. Arceus, however, can create physical copies of himself that represent every force of nature and pokémon. Fire, ice, psychic, even insect. Not only can he create these physical manifestations, but he can freely switch through these attributes himself. He is all, but none at the same time.]_

I sat there and mulled on the information for a long time. Then I got the image of a bellsprout becoming the new god. I snorted to myself, imagining a church of bellsprout; people wearing bellsprout hats and wiggling around like they were made of vines.

* * *

_/I'm full of amazement at the sight before me. Amazing. I don't know any other words to describe it. I've seen beaches before. They've usually been dreary, covered in krabby, maybe a mantine or something and usually have things hidden under the sand waiting to chew on my toes or something._

_This one… it's like something out of an old advert. The sand is nearly bleached white, the sun is beating down on everything and the sea's such a clear blue that I'm pretty sure I could see all the way down to the bottom._

_I secure the areas as quickly as I can. There's no one here. There's no signs of life anywhere. It's nothing short of amazing. I've heard the rumours about Dewford; that it got attacked early on and nearly got wiped off the map. The pokémon and people all fled because of something or another._

_And yet, here I am. And I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to run away from it._

_I strip out of my soaked clothes and sit there for a little while on the beach. I slide my hands into my pockets and find four little poké balls, all gleaming in the midday sun. One by one, I let them all out; zangoose, weezing, vespiquen and the latest one – a mantine._

_Why can't I remember their names?_

_The mantine hoots and floats down to the sea, basking lazily atop the water's surface. The zangoose busies itself digging trenches in the sand whilst the weezing goes further inland in search of food. The vespiquen stays near me, wings buzzing and mandibles clacking._

_A little something in me dances around. Almost like I shouldn't be here. I don't understand why. It's my life, isn't it? My camp got destroyed; I have nowhere to be. But the feeling is worse than that; like something strong is stalking around near me. I leap to my feet, scope out the beach and try to see something that I should be afraid of. Instead I find nothing._

_There's a rumble in the ground beneath me. I leap backwards, stare at the ground and poke it with my toes. The sand crumbles away, like sand should do, but reveals no hidden levels beneath it._

_I don't like it. I tell my pokémon as such and recall the two fliers. I keep the zangoose near me and call the weezing back from the trees. It floats back, spits out a little sulphurous cloud and moans. It hates the lack of life here. No food, no friends, no company… no… nothing._

_The island is like a paradise. Except can it still be paradise when it leaves you feeling so lonely?_

_I hear the sounds of pokémon somewhere nearby. My heart races, tells me I shouldn't go anywhere near them. But I'm so amazed that there's someone else on this island that I know I have to investigate. I need to make sure they won't see me when I make my way from the island._

_I throw on my barely-dried clothes and stalk my way towards the sound. The zangoose has dropped to all fours, deadly silent. The weezing floats through the air, no longer moaning or even expelling gasses. They're on the hunt._

_I realise it's something we share in common._

_The sounds are getting closer. It almost sounds like someone is training their pokémon. _

_Badly, by the sounds of it._

_I motion for my own pokémon to stay behind me as I creep closer. I hide behind a tree, see my zangoose hide in a bush and the weezing in the leaves of the tree. My gun is steady in my hands. I take a breath, get ready for a fight and lean out of my cover._

_My heart stops for a moment. I recognise the person! I sign for my weezing to take out her pokémon quickly, my zangoose to circle round and prevent their escape. I make sure they know what to do before I sneak out of my cover and approach._

_It's all over before she realises. Her pokémon are defeated squarely and she finds herself staring down the barrel of my gun before she can even attempt a counter attack. My zangoose hisses from behind her as she tries to escape._

_I know it's her, even though for some reason I can't see her face. My eyes feel like they're being drawn away from her face every time I look there. I frown, shake my head and ignore it for now._

_I don't see it clearly, but I know she smiles at me. "Hey Sharpshooter. Fancy seeing you here."_

_I scowl and take a step closer towards her. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just kill you now."_

_She shrugs and points towards the treelines. "Still some sceptile that live around here. They hear a gunshot? They'll probably come running to slice apart whatever caused the noise."_

_I feel the ground rumble again. I move my feet slowly across it, confused by it all. Even more confused that she doesn't react. She opens her mouth to speak, shuts it quickly and presses a hand to her stomach. She rocks a little, almost like she's… sea sick? _

_That's not right._

_I push the thoughts out of my head. Slowly I holster my gun, accepting that even if there aren't sceptile on the island, I don't want to risk it. "It must be my lucky day, to find you here."_

_She straightens out and smiles. "How comes, Sharpshooter? Why would you be searching for me?"_

_I scowl, grab her arm and hold it tight enough to start forming bruises. "Should I start with the part where you knocked me out with an oddish? Or that while I was out you stripped me naked and left me near a beedrill nest?"_

_She laughs, not even attempting to move my arm. "Be lucky I didn't cover you in honey and leave you near the ursaring. You'd have either woken up as they were eating you… or as the cubs were licking you. One's life threatening… the other's just a little on the wrong side of kinky."_

_I gag a little at the images her words produce. "So what's your real story? Why the hell are you even here?"_

_She shrugs, still not making a move to dislodge my arm. "Being free. My camp got blown to bits. That was all the way away in Kanto. I decided I wanted to get as far away from there as I could. So I rode on my swimmer most of the way across the ocean, got caught in some really bad tides and ended up washing ashore in what remains of Hoenn." She whistled and looked back to the beach. "Got to say, this place is a lot nicer-looking than grey old Kanto."_

_She's trying to distract me. I realise that much. Only one of her words sticks out in my mind though; "Where's your swimmer?"_

_She smiles, devious and foreboding. It's almost like she's already won. She nods her head towards the beach. "Oh, he's just surfacing now."_

_I follow her gaze towards the beach and find just what her pokémon is. Reflexively I drop her arm and back away from the towering pokémon._

_Her swimmer is a goddam _gyarados.

"_You lose again," the mysterious woman says before something heavy hits the back of my head. I drop to the floor, watch the blurry forms of the massive serpent breathing flames over my zangoose and freezing my weezing solid with a beam of ice. Finally my double vision swims into something like quintuple before my brain gives up and everything goes black./_

* * *

Sharp pain in the back of my head shocked me into consciousness. My body felt ragged, like something had thrown earthquakes under my unconscious form. Marsha was already awake, muttering something to her cryogonal even as she packed up our little camp.

_[Interesting,_] Gemini said into my brain.

I spun around in my sleeping back, tangled myself up and looked up at her from my position on the floor. "What is?" I asked, phantom pain still dancing around.

_[Nothing,]_ she said dismissively with a flick of her ears. _[We should move.]_

I nodded incoherently and packed everything up on autopilot. Marsha checked me once I'm done, nodded and recalled her pokémon. The snowflake vanished, replaced by her jynx once more. I called back Alistair into his ball and replace him with Erra instead. The magnemite flitted about wildly in the darkness, clung to the ceiling and hissed at something we couldn't see in the darkness. Regardless, she still followed when we started moving, somewhat hesitantly, crawling along the ceiling all the while.

"What's up with her?" I wondered aloud, staring up at the ceiling.

"Probably the electrical thing?" Marsha suggested. "It turns magneton into magnezone, maybe it annoys the magnemite?"

Alarm bells went off in my head. I thought of Xander and the water stone and felt like I was going to be sick. Hastily I recalled Erra and prayed that she'd be alright. I replaced her with Scar, pointedly warned him to keep his tail-flame away from anything that looked like it might explode on contact with fire and told him to try to stick to using as little fire as possible.

Marsha had a weavile out alongside her. It moved expertly through the darkness, clinging to the shadows and sneaking ahead to scout out the situation. It would often dart back, hiss at Scar to move his fire so that something wouldn't see us, then skulk back through the darkness once more.

"You're a deep sleeper," Marsha whispered conversationally. "Two earthquakes lower down and you didn't even stir."

I found myself recalling another one of the really weird dreams. "They worked their ways into my dream though. That confused the hell out of me, just a little. Then I got whacked on the head and woke up."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "That wasn't me then. Nothing hit your head here in the real world." She pointed her torch at a few cracks in the wall, gasped and leapt straight at them. "We're closing in!" she hissed excitedly. "I know these markings! They're Wally's!"

"So what way's he going?"

She cursed and analysed the markings just a bit closer. "Damn! I don't know!" She fell back, shone her torch on them and sounded like she was about to break down into tears. "The 'W' there, that's him. But then the little 'L' he's put in above it. I don't know where that means he turned left here or he needs to turn left down this corridor or what! Damn it Wally! Why can't you leave a map or something with where you're going?"

"Can you sense anyone nearby?" I asked Gemini.

She wittered something unintelligible. _[I cannot. The fog is close again.]_

I cursed at the same time Marsha did. We glanced at each other, surprised and summed it all up with one word.

"Fog?"

"Fog."

I frowned and tried to think of a way we could progress. "Does Wally have a psychic? And the others he travels with? Do they have one too?"

Marsha nodded quickly, then slowed into a more hesitant one. "Wally definitely has one. A gardevoir. First pokémon he caught. The others… I think Brendan has a claydol. Pretty sure May has a solrock too."

"So they might have felt the brain-fog too if it was here when they were." I scratched at a few days' worth of stubble and attempted to figure out a plan. "Do you think they would have tried to avoid it? Or would they have not noticed it and got pulled in by whatever's starting it?"

Marsha sighed and glanced around the perpetual darkness of the tunnels. "I can't say. I'd hope they'd avoid it… but it might not have been here when they were. Or… _anything_ could have happened!"

I glanced at her, then at our psychic pokémon standing guard. Scar was in a little corner, basking it in an orange glow and illuminating the old brown walls around him. The weavile was in the opposite corner, hiding in darkness and sharpening its claws meticulously. I turned back to the psychics again, saw them both staring off into the same direction and made my decision.

"We keep going where this whole thing is thinner. If we can't think, we won't be any good to anyone. We might get lucky and find everyone and everything we want to."

Marsha began pulling at the hem of her top again. "And if we don't?"

I shrugged. I honestly had no idea. "We figure out a plan from there, I guess."

She agreed without a sound. We started following our psychics once more, making our way through the tunnels and trying to figure out just where the hell we were going. The only thing we knew for definite was that we were reaching the lower levels, given that we started seeing little ponds of bubbling liquids.

The pools bubbled and seemed to burp as we walked past. There was a horrible smell, like vinegar, but somehow stronger all around them.

"There's the acid lakes," Marsha said, sleeve over her face. "Try not to get too close. It's slowly eroding at the rocks around here, so you could very well fall in when the floor gives way."

I shuddered at the thought of it. We crept past them all as quickly and carefully as we could. The entire place was just one massive death trap that I just couldn't wait to get out of.

Abruptly, both Gemini and Marsha' jynx stopped and looked worried.

_[This isn't right,]_ Gemini whispered, horror in her voice.

I found myself reaching reflexively for a new weapon. "What?"

_[The fog… the signal. It's changed. It's coming this way!]_

Her words were all two literal. A slow, creepy fog started seeping out of the rocks, covering the entirety of the tunnels and hiding everything within. I couldn't see the light of my torch anymore, nor could I even see my nose when I crossed my eyes.

"What's going on?" I whispered, unable to keep the tremble out of my voice. I reached out for Gemini, found nothing but fog and slid my feet out across the floor. I couldn't see Scar's flame anywhere either, nor the light of Marsha's torch. "If I'm dreaming still, I'd really like to wake up about now."

My foot bumped into something solid, but soft. I tried to figure out just what it was. Instead my brain was clogged in the same fog I found surrounding me entirely. I looked up to see just what I'd walked into.

A pair of glowing purple eyes opened right in front of me.

Something like an invisible wrecking ball hit me and then everything vanished into complete black.


	52. Contingency

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Contingency**

* * *

_What d'you think's going to happen? We find a cure, save the world or just fall in love and __fuck?__ Staying alive is as good as it gets _~ Selena – _28 Days Later_

**-O-O-O-**

"_Did anyone ever think that all these supposedly 'uber' villainous teams could have succeeded in their plans if they'd bothered thinking about things a bit more? Team Rocket got so far because they did everything behind the scenes, then lost when they became public. So did Aqua and Magma. Then again, more than the idiocy of these weirdoes hell-bent on world domination, it begs the very serious question; just how blind are our world's police forces?"_

- Anon (Name wiped from all available sources). _(September 11__th__, 3007)._

**-O-O-O-**

The first thing I was aware of was pain – or the lack thereof.

I stumbled up from the floor, gripped my head and tried to make sense of what had happened. I couldn't tell how long I'd been or, nor could I even tell where I was anymore. It was just dark and foggy. The fog crept all around me, snatching at the corners of light and dragging them back down into unending black. Little wispy tendrils of fog swam through the air, grabbing at sights unseen in the dark.

I quickly checked my surroundings. No one and nothing was nearby. I knew I should have stayed put, just so that I'd be easier to find. I would have, had I not been completely unnerved by the encroaching darkness. It seemed sentient.

I told myself that wasn't possible.

Yet it recoiled away from my speech and then snapped around in my direction, like a tentacle with an eye on the end. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and decided I didn't want to be anywhere near it.

I escaped into the darkness, walking fast and checking my every step. I constantly watched it over the back of my shoulder, circling in the air, almost as if it was sniffing something before slowly crawling towards me.

I told myself I was crazy. That it had to be a pokémon playing tricks on me. I remembered the bright purple eyes – the ones that mad everything in my brain feel like it was exploding. I glanced back at the fog, even more unnerved and tried to figure out just what was causing all of this.

And more than that; how the hell my pokémon had managed to vanish.

I touched my chest; felt nothing there but clothes. I panicked, patted myself down and found nothing more than simple clothing. Fear lanced through my gut like a physical spear. _Everything_ I owned but the clothes on my back – quite literally – had just up and vanished! I jumped back, realised I may have left everything back where I woke and tried to double back towards it.

Except the fog was there behind me, waiting, watching. I froze and it did too. I moved my left arm; a tendril of smoky darkness reached out in that direction.

_This isn't right._

I tried to reach out with my mind; to find Gemini or Alistair somewhere in the darkness. I couldn't reach either. The fog was back in my mind again; letting me think, but clouding the outside. It was almost like it had made a barrier in my mind; I could think, I could move. But beyond that, I was on my own.

Alone.

The thought made me shudder more than I should have. My breath fogged before me and for the first time, I noticed just how much colder it was down there. I reached out slowly, watched the fog mimicking my movements and tried to reach the walls around me. I knew they were somewhere nearby; the tunnels were all just a bit wider than the width of an onix.

I moved slowly, trod carefully and felt nothing beneath my feet. Finally I reached the side, pressed my hand against it, touched something wet and flinched. I pulled my hand away, stared at the black of the wall and couldn't see anything different. I rubbed my fingers together, found them still wet and strangely sticky.

I lifted my hand to my face and found it covered in blood.

I recoiled and tried to throw it away. Little specks of blood flew into the fog. It reacted instantly, _snarled_ and circled around it, greedy for more.

I swore, panicked and ran the hell away from it.

Dark and cold. It was the entirety of the tunnels now. I could hear the strange blackness creeping up behind me, moving in tandem with me. I slowed down; it did too. I sped up; so did it.

I wondered briefly what would happen if I reached a dead end.

Quickly I pushed the thought out of my head. Not fast enough for me to realise it could be a literal _dead_ end.

I stopped running when I realised that I wasn't actually being hunted, at least not in the sense that I was about to be killed. The fog seemed to be trapping me, pinning me into somewhere that I wouldn't be able to move from. I told myself I wasn't about to be outsmarted by a bunch of black water vapour.

I tried to think again. Whatever was in my mind was letting me do that much. I walked closer to the nearest wall, staying far away enough that the fog wouldn't trap me, yet close enough that I could see the details I needed.

The wall was bleeding.

At least, it seemed to be. Blood and something else ran down the sides, almost like rain on a window. It looked like the inside of an intestine. Little chunks of something were hanging in the corners of the cracks – that somehow looked like folds. I couldn't tell what they were, but they seemed all different sorts of colours. One of them dripped; a little drop of something red that merged into the streaming wall.

I backed away reflexively. _Blood_. The little chunks of whatever were things that were _bleeding._

I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself. I couldn't make out the colours that well, but I could see little bits of blue and pink. None of my pokémon had that colour skin, I told myself. I wondered where they were, stopped myself and tried to think of my own survival. If they needed me to help find them, I wouldn't be any use if I was dead.

I glanced back at the swirling darkness. It didn't move back when I did. I swallowed nervously, fearfully confirming my suspicions; it was letting me move forward, but every step I took was a one-way trip. I let myself believe that there was a little chance I could double back on it; somehow get it to eat itself or something. Rationality kicked in and told me that most likely I'd end up trapped between it and starve to death, if I was lucky. If not…

… well, I didn't care to think about that.

I tried to think and ignore the way the wall seemed to twitch. There was no way I could know where I was walking to; if it would lead to a dead end or not. The chill in wherever I was only swirled enough to make little goosebumps appear over my skin, but didn't do much more than that. The darkness seemed to be something that wasn't so harmless, however.

There wasn't any direction to choose to start walking in, thankfully. I just followed the curve of the walls, mentally trying to figure out how there seemed to be little enough light that I could see clearly around myself. Every so often something in the fog would hiss, or growl, or snarl and I would jump, leap ahead and try to run away from it. Each time I noticed that there was a change in the ground; a hole, a sudden incline or a sudden drop. I quickly figured out that it was trying to trip me up – for a purpose I didn't want to know. After that I kept the little bit of information in my mind and double checked the flooring every time I heard noise from behind.

The ground was dry and dusty, at least. If it had been wet or eating through my shoes, I may have convinced myself I was walking through something's intestines. I shuddered, vividly recalling crawling through rotting sea dragons and swore to myself that I wouldn't be in that situation again.

"Where the hell is this leading me?" I whispered. It felt so alien to be without any form of sound anymore. I was so used to my pokémon nearby, stomping over dirt or leaves. Marsha's presence had added to that, with human interaction and conversation. Even when I had been on my own; before the days of ever meeting my pokémon – before ever coming to such a world – I had heard constant sounds. Hours spent on surveillance with little chirps and grunts from distant pokémon and shouts from closer humans.

This was just a _void_. No sounds, no grunts, no footsteps.

_Nothing_.

My feet were nearly soundless underneath me. I was convinced I'd somehow become deaf. I clicked my fingers near my ear and winced away from the sudden sound.

Definitely not deaf.

I don't know whether that made the feeling better or worse.

I carried on tracing my route with the walls, reluctant to touch them again. The blood from before had already dried and crusted on my hand. I didn't want to cover it again. Remembering the way the fog had leapt at the little droplets made fear do a little dance atop my stomach.

I carried on walking for what felt an age. Everything was just the same; black, endless black, with encroaching fog from behind and occasional pitfalls to trip me up. I sighed, shut my eyes and rubbed them just to try and wake myself up a little. I wasn't going to fall asleep anywhere in that place.

When I opened my eyes, I wondered if I had.

Everything had changed. It wasn't dark anymore. I wasn't in a tunnel.

I was in a frozen wasteland.

Where I could only see endless black before, now it was a constant landscape of white. The sky was a dingy grey with snow floating down as far as I could see. There was no sort of landscape in the distance; nothing that I could use to figure out where I was. The snow came up to my knees and I had to make all that extra effort to move.

Weirdly, I wasn't all that cold.

I certainly felt it when I realised the fog was still behind me.

It was still the same black, still hovering there, somehow menacing despite not moving. It spread across the entire landscape behind me, covering it as far as I could see. It made it clear that I couldn't turn back, even in the new landscape.

I stood there for at least ten minutes, just trying to figure out which way to walk. Every direction looked exactly the same; there was no change in snowfall in any direction. I was about to choose any direction at random when suddenly the fog began to move from behind me. It took only seconds, but the entire east was covered by the ever-present black.

I gulped, backtracked and nearly fell over in the snow. By some miracle I stayed upright and watched it, unmoving, unseeing, yet somehow sentient and frightening.

I realised then that I had to keep moving, no matter what.

If east and south were blocked, I rationalised that northwest was the way to go. Equidistant from both sides of the fog – far enough away from each unreal barrier. I played out little scenarios in my mind; reasons behind its creation, its purpose and just where the hell I was.

I figured that it had to be some sort of illusion. Either that, or I had somehow been warped somewhere into some strange, twisted domain. The fog was always present, which made it important in my mind.

I decided that it had to be some sort of weird test; escape the fog in wherever the hell I was and it wouldn't overtake you. It was strong back in the real world – if I had left what was _real_ – and could stop us from thinking – even our psychics. I told myself that this was probably some sort of weird psychic trick of my mind; providing me with one last-ditch attempt to reclaim my brain. Escape and carry on being sane. Lose and…

… I didn't want to think about it.

The theory was the only thing that made sense. I walked a little while until finally I came across footsteps.

They were human. About my size, maybe a little bigger. It meant that obviously I wasn't alone wherever I was.

But if I was in my mind; why would there be other footprints running around?

I felt exposed and cold suddenly. I wrapped my arms around myself, span full circle and tried to figure out just what the hell was going on. The footsteps lead into the fog. I swallowed, decided that following them wasn't in my best interest and carried on in the way I was going.

Five steps in and I was sure that there was something out there, following me.

Ten steps in and I heard something in the fog.

I leapt ahead a pace, awkwardly and flailed in the air, forgetting about how deep I was buried in the snow. I glanced back, saw nothing but fog again. It swirled a bit more, seemingly growing impatient.

It could just suffer and wait then, I spat at it. If it was truly my mind, it was certainly used to such a thing.

I tried to pull myself out of the snow and realised one crucial thing I'd overlooked earlier; the footsteps were _atop_ the snow.

They weren't like mine. I was buried knee-deep in the stuff and was leaving a trench behind me. The footsteps had been across the top, as if it were only a few inches deep.

Somewhere behind me, snow crunched.

I leapt up and started to seemingly swim in the snow. I couldn't see anything behind me, but I knew I heard something within. I was tempted to scream out, to see who was there, if they'd answer. I knew it was foolish; I kept my mouth shut.

There were more footstep sounds.

I decided I'd had enough then. I made my way through the snow as quickly as I could, throwing it everywhere and uncannily aware of the fog slowly creeping up behind me. I tried to calm myself; to focus on what could be causing the footsteps. If it was my mind, I should be aware of what the hell could be running around in it – or so I told myself. I'd never been diagnosed as having multiple personalities or anything of the sort, so I hoped that this wasn't a weird manifestation of little people inside my mind trying to take over.

The footsteps were varied. Some were slow, methodical. Others were fast and frantic. Like something bigger than the other was moving around. Or maybe something young and something old. A pokémon and a human? The possibilities were endless.

I cursed, pressed the heels of my palms into my hands until gold and green exploded in my vision and finally pulled them away.

When I did, everything had changed again.

I wasn't in the icy tundra anymore. In fact, I had no idea where I was anymore. Everywhere was just a monochrome blue. The floor was black, yet there seemed to be little rectangular dips in it, almost like little doors. The fog was there, of course, floating behind me and looming obnoxiously.

I stretched a foot across the floor and tapped one of the doors with it.

Nothing opened.

Instead that rectangle of the floor lit up.

I flinched and leapt away, afraid something was going to leap out. When nothing did, I leant a bit closer and saw a flood of images.

Then the light went off.

I stood there for a moment, blinking and trying to comprehend what had just happened. It was just a bunch of aimless pictures that I couldn't make sense of. A forest, a big lake, a dead baby, big inanimate blobs of light, a few things that looked like people, trees and then nothing but a continual blur of weird shapes and noises, somehow.

I frowned, shook my head and decided I'd had enough. I scrunched my eyes shut, rubbed them again and hoped for somewhere new to appear.

Instead, I remained exactly where I was.

"So, obviously I can't control whatever this is," I muttered to myself. I tried another light-box out of curiosity. Nothing happened. No matter how many times I tried to activate it, it just seemed like nothing was underneath there.

I tried a few others and got a load of different images. Toddlers, pokémon, weapons, people, buildings… _everything_. There was so much in there without any sort of context at all that it made no sense at all. It was like stuffing a picture of everything in the world into someone's brain and expecting them to understand just what the hell you were talking about.

I pressed a few more of the things and let a little light into the room. Again the fog was there, covering the east and the south again. I cursed it, cursed it again for not having anything to throw at it and settled on taking off my top, bundling it into a ball and throwing it at the damn water vapour.

Instantly I was wearing it once again.

I pulled at it, incredulous and momentarily struck dumb. "Just what the _fuck_ is going on in here?" I screamed at the eternal black. It said nothing, but more footsteps came from within.

I scrunched my eyes shut and willed everything to change again.

When I opened them, it finally had.

And I wished that I hadn't been so hasty.

I was stood in a completely white zone, with the fog surrounding me on three sides now. The only way forward was blocked by what seemed to be a massive screen. Static flicked across it, then a little countdown from three started, like so many of the old movies I'd watched growing up. A little bit of me was excited about what could possibly be playing in my mind.

Slowly, words formed on the screen.

_An insurance policy._

I had no idea what it meant. And before the screen had even had a single image come on it, my brain exploded with such pain I thought something was going to try and crawl out of it. A little spot on the side of my skull was the epicentre of it all and no matter how much I tried to get the pain away, it remained, setting my nerves aflame and killing my throat with my own screams.

Finally, the pain died away.

And I watched myself dying on the screen.

It was like a constant loop, yet never the same chain of events. All the time, it ended with me dying in weird ways.

I flinched away, unable to look. Eventually I found myself drawn to them, through morbid curiosity, if nothing else. Nothing was ever the same.

Until I noticed something in about the twentieth one.

There was always a little blob of green hidden somewhere in the background.

As soon as I noticed it, cold fire burnt within me. The images changed, becoming ones of me sometimes winning against something that moved faster than I could see. I never came off completely unscathed, yet at least I was actually winning some.

I noticed in each that I was getting slowly older and older.

Somehow I doubted there was going to be one of me dying of old age.

Eventually all the images blurred into one. The things that disturbed me the most were the ones of me becoming a drooling wreck. Other than those, the death somehow didn't affect me as much as I thought it would.

Finally the screen rolled up and disappeared into a white void in the sky. Fear lanced through me like an actual weapon when I saw the fog looming behind the screen too.

Then I got hit by a cluster bomb of fear when the purple eyes opened up in the fog. I felt familiar pain in my brain once more, noticed the fog swirling around me as I collapsed to the floor, powerless to stop it all.

Finally, there was a little voice in the back of my head. It came in with such force that every word felt like it was enough to shatter my skull.

"_**They did their job well."**_

And then everything was black.

* * *

Everything was shaking when I came too again. It took a minute for clarity to reach in, slap me across the head and tell me that I was the one shaking.

I groaned, pressed a hand to my aching head and tried to block out the pain. I heard Marsha's voice swimming above me and tried to focus on one single syllable that she said.

"Huh?" I finally grunted, having lost her completely.

She sighed, pulled me to my feet and glanced around. "I asked if you had a freaky-mind trip too."

I patted myself down, found my poké balls, my weapons and everything necessary. "That was in my mind?" I asked, still not with it. Scar was stood in front of me, sniffing curiously and growling softly. I smiled and hugged his scaly neck, not even flinching when he dug his claws into my shoulders in surprise. "That was… insanely creepy," I finally whispered. "You guys too?"

Scar grunted his answer before Marsha could tell me. Once she did, even Gemini chimed in to say that she too had suffered them. "I was lost in this weird snowy tundra for ages," Marsha said, wrapping her arms around herself. "It wasn't cold, but there was this big, black fog creeping after me all the while. I don't even know what really made me come to – all I remember is something saying 'incorrect specimen'."

"I had the tundra too," I said, excited and horrified at the same time. "The fog too. But then there was this weird, black tunnel before it that had all the walls lined in blood and after the tundra was this weird plane with all these little picture-doors on the floor."

"Weird," Marsha said. "Actually, I don't know what is; that whole freaky thing or the fact that nothing actually ate us while we were out. And apparently the fog's mostly lifted from this area too."

_[She is correct,]_ Gemini told me. _[Everything here is much clearer than before. I assume that whatever the creature's goal was with that distraction, it has completed it.]_

"Celebi?" I asked my pokémon and Marsha both. "Could it have done that? The purple eyes and the hallucination?"

Marsha shrugged. _[Perhaps,]_ Gemini said at the same time. _[Most psychics' eyes glow blue or purple when they use their abilities. As do ghosts. It is mostly impossible to tell what was able to cause such a thing, except for the obvious fact that it was powerful.]_

"That's always nice to know," I grunted. "So what way do we go now?"

_[I would say-that's curious.]_

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. "That makes no sense."

She looked over at the jynx, sharing a silent conversation. Finally Gemini looked back to me and said, _[The signal has completely gone. No trace of it remains. This is… unsettling.]_

I was about to ask what she meant when Marsha screamed, "You can sense Wally?" She leapt at her pokémon, grabbed her by the hands and practically fell to her knees begging her. "Please tell me he's alright. Let me know where the hell he is!"

The jynx nodded and floated seamlessly down one of the corridors. After being in such weird, bright places – even if it was only within my mind – it seemed strange to be back in near-total darkness. Marsha took off running behind it, her cryogonal hovering in the hair silently behind it. I shrugged and nodded for Scar and Gemini to follow.

Being back within the Cluster, physically, was an eerie sensation. The threats were real, physical things that could actually damage me again. The walls weren't covered in blood.

My hand was still coated in dry blood.

I put the thought away with a violent shudder and tried to focus completely on what was currently happening.

The whole time, the tunnels were empty. It was like something had scared everything off, or somehow it had managed to sway them all to one cause.

It was more than a little unnerving.

I kept expecting the fog to come out of nowhere once more. Although I was with another person and pokémon, something about the whole area just didn't feel right. Scar's light would flicker every so often, always like something behind us had breathed on it. We would leap at the shadows behind us, but there would never be anything there; just dark beaten back by the light of our torches.

"I don't like this," I whispered. Both my pokémon and Marsha grunted in answer to me. I pointed along the walls with my torch and finally into the looming dark of the tunnels. "Have you even heard a flicker of life lately? There have been constant sounds of pokémon, no matter how distant before. Now it's just… silent. Either something's happening in here, or somehow we're still being chased by fog."

Marsha shuddered, spun around full circle and finally breathed a long breath. "I don't think we are. Everything in here looks real. Something's happening in here and I don't like it."

I said nothing and carried on following our psychics our psychics. "Could that signal have something to do with this?" I asked after a long minute. "We felt it before; it was everywhere within; Gemini, you said it could affect the pokémon and change them somehow, right? What if it's changed it round and getting them to avoid us, or grouping up to attack us or something?"

"Stop driving yourself insane," Marsha hissed. "We don't know what's causing it. After that latest mind fuck trip, I don't know what could be happening in here. We have two psychics here; if they sense pokémon, they'll be able to tell us."

"But they haven't been able to so far," I pointed out.

_[Before, the signal was blocking most of our abilities.]_ Gemini said. _[It was impossible to tell what was lying within the signal's range. Now, it is clear. But I cannot sense anything. It is possible that there is nothing here. There also lies in the possibility that somehow, the signal is so strong that it is able to give false-negatives.]_

"That makes no sense," I said at the same time Marsha shushed me.

She stood there, her entire posture on edge as she listened to something in the darkness. "Can you hear that?" she whispered.

I strained my ears to hear exactly what she could. I moved closer to her, put my ear near the wall she was stood next to and heard what sounded like distant fighting from behind. "What?" I asked as I pressed the wall, looking for a way towards the sound.

"I'm not sure what it is." Marsha pressed herself closer and slowly trickled her hands across the wall. "It sounds like it's coming from the other side here. But I haven't seen a tunnel leading towards it. And our one seemed to curve left; away from this thing. Our only way to check would be to break down this wall. But if we did it wrong, the whole damn thing could come down on us."

"The wall's pretty thick too." I knocked against it, heard nothing but the sound of solid stone and frowned. "We should try around the corner or something; see if the wall's weaker. But of course, we could get into there and find that we're just walking in on two pokémon going after each other."

"But we could also find Wally," she argued. "We can't just leave him there if it is him. I can't just walk away if it could be him." She growled, threw her hands to the air and finally punched the wall. She stood there for a long moment, frozen before snatching back her fist and cursing the air blue. "Okay. That was stupid. Finn, I want you to leave something you can trace here. Small enough so nothing else should randomly come across it; big enough that you should be able to track it."

Her jynx hummed something I couldn't understand. It sashayed to the wall, pressed its hands together and sung a strange tune as a little blue-white glue shone from its hands. A little crystal of ice formed on the wall, glittering like a jewel every time the light caught it.

"Good," Marsha said. "Come on; let's see if we can get in there somehow."

She turned away and skulked down the tunnels with newfound purpose. Every so often she would stop and glance back, seemingly judging the distance and double-checking with her pokémon. I asked Gemini whether or not she could track it at one point, but she simply said she couldn't.

"Here!" Marsha announced suddenly. She spun round a corner and nearly sprinted down the new tunnel, hindered only by her jynx in front of her and the uneven ground beneath her. The sounds of battle became louder and louder the closer we got to wherever we were going.

Finally we reached a dead end. Grooves had been carved into the wall from certain pokémon, and a pit loomed at the side with warring pokémon trying to throw each other down.

From what I could see, there was a gardevoir, an altaria and a banette fighting against what looked like a claydol, a mawile and a massive electrode all battling. Someone behind them all, hidden in the shadows was throwing out commands.

The altaria was screeching like a maniac. It soared just beneath the roof of the cave, shrieked and dove at the electrode. It spun through the air, pecking and slashing at the electrode as it rolled across the floor, discharging electricity at everything. The gardevoir warped in and kicked the coiled up pokémon clean into the wall.

The gardevoir spun around quickly and slashed the floating claydol in the face. The altaria landed on other side of the thing's head and bathed it in green flames as the mawile barked and chased after the banette. The doll threw back its head, laughed and disappeared through the thick stone walls. Seconds later it appeared behind the mawile, picked it up by the foot and dangled it above the pit for a second before it dropped it. Instantly afterwards the banette vanished again, appeared above the claydol and dug clawed, shadowy hands into one of its many eyes.

The claydol screamed and flung everything off it with a psychic shockwave strong enough to send me and my pokémon flying backwards. The electrode noticed us, hissed and uncoiled itself to reveal its full glory. It looked exactly like a millipede that came up to my knee. It scuttled across the wall, raced towards us and dropped from the ceiling in a perfect ball. Electricity crackled through the air, discharged into Scar and Marsha's jynx and knocked them both out in one fell swoop.

I swore and watched a shining yellow barrier form around us as we recalled our pokémon. Marsha's cryogonal breathed icy flames across the electic millipede, freezing it in place. The electrode hissed, spun on the spot and melted the ice with a white-hot bolt of electricity. It leapt at us, bounced off a sudden blue barrier and recoiled back into the darkness, hissed at us once more. The gardevoir appeared behind it, stuck its claws through the thing's brain and casually tossed it out of the way.

I breathed in relief, only for a couple of golbat to flutter out of the pit hole and start attacking. Two threw themselves into Gemini's barrier, shattered them on impact and left it open for a third to soar straight in. Gemini's eyes shone blue and so did one of the golbats, but with a shriek the bat shrugged off the attack and dive-bombed us and our pokémon.

I fell to the floor as the air above me cut into pieces. Gemini whined in pain then growled as she kicked the bat in the face with both her back hooves. At the same time, Marsha's cryogonal was busy fighting off two golbat at once, floating around them and shooting little cold blizzards at them both.

I glanced over at the other pokémon. Each enemy they faced went down in one hit, but more constantly appeared in their places. The altaira screamed as it disappeared under a flutter of purple crobat wings, then turned into pure red energy instantly afterwards. A large purple and cream cat appeared with a white flash quickly afterwards, hissed and leapt at one of the bats, biting down on its neck and splashing crimson blood everywhere.

I swore as something breezed past the air above me again. I snatched my gun out, rolled onto my back and tried to aim at whatever was attacking me.

Whatever it was flew far too quickly for me to get a lock on. I cursed again and released Alistair and Loki in one swoop. Loki burst into action instantly, leaping up and grabbing hold of one of the golbat's legs. He clambered his way up the thing, sat on its back and quickly began slashing the thing's face apart.

Alistair meanwhile busied himself by slashing at whatever tried to attack him. A few times he managed to cut something as it flew past him, but most of the time he seemed to be rolling under or away from wings that were steadily managing to cut us all to ribbons.

There was another sound of a poké ball exploding open, then the sound of extremely loud buzzing. The person hidden behind it all screamed over all the noise, "Everyone down!"

I didn't second-guess his command. I was on the floor instantly, as was Marsha and all our pokémon. Loki dropped from his impromptu ride and disappeared into the floor as suddenly a deafening thundercrack filled the caverns. My ears screamed and rung all at once, then not even a second later there was a brilliant white flashed of light.

I pressed my faced down into the dirt, still able to see bright red splotches of light, even though my eyes were shut. Slowly my ears started hearing noise again, telling me that the flying things were mostly all on the floor, wings fluttering weakly, if at all.

My nose stung with the smell of burnt flesh and spots still swam in my eyes. I checked my pokémon, made sure they were fine and looked up at the new arrival.

It looked like a massive, flying cockroach. Its body was a sleek grey and a single red eye flicked in the middle of its body. Little streaks of red and blue decorated the tips of its wings and it buzzed loudly enough to overtake the ringing of my ears.

Marsha leapt to her feet and squinted into the darkness. "Wally?" she whispered. She took all of a moment to check her assumptions before she ran at him and nearly squashed him into the wall. "You stupid goon! You're alright, aren't you?"

I pushed myself to my feet and swayed just slightly on them. Wally was nodding slowly, his face a deathly shade of white. Marsha whispered something I couldn't hear as she dove into her pack and pulled out a weird mask and a little, compact tank attached to it. She pressed the mask onto Wally's face and let him breath into it as she glanced around the little dead end.

Her cyrogonal was covering the little pitfall with a thick sheen of ice. Gemini covered it with a translucent green barrier which the floating snowflake covered over with yet more ice. Gemini grunted something to the other pokémon, tested her weight on the makeshift trapdoor with a hoof and seemed to declare it good enough.

Alistair moved slowly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling above us. _[I do not like this place, sir. Somehow it feels worse than before.]_

"You're telling me," I grunted. "If I never have to see this place again, it will be too soon." I scratched Loki's head as he gurgled by my leg and made my way carefully over to Wally and Marsha. She was busy looking through her bag for something as he was leaning against the wall, slowly pulling himself up as what seemed to be his pokémon crowded around him.

I made my way around the gardevoir somewhat nervously and stood next to a delcatty that looked ready to rip my face off. "What happened down here?" I asked Wally.

He shrugged as best he could. He took a deep breath from his mask and pulled it off before quickly glancing at mine and Marsha's pokémon. "I have no clue. Something weird. Everything was fine up to about three days ago. The pokémon were perfectly normal for down here… there wasn't anything weird about it at all. Then slowly, wenoticed everything changing. It was like… we couldn't think anymore." He frowned, took a quick inhale from his mask and sighed. "Maybe that's not right. Something happened. It was like… somehow, we weren't able to think as quickly as before. Like something was slowing us down, mentally.

"Then it started getting worse." He took another breath, tried to take his mask off again until Marsha shoved it on his face and insisted he keep wearing it. He threw her a long-suffering look and shook his head. "After that, it was like we couldn't think of anything. We became focused on a single task, then after that, we even couldn't focus on that. It was like we only had our instincts left; feed, sleep, drink and the rest. Then some of our pokémon went crazy. They randomly turned round and started attacking us too. We had to fight them off and recall them, but it was so hard to think about recalling them. Everything in our minds was screaming instinct; kill or be killed."

He winced as he pulled himself further up. "We let out our psychics; they went on about something to do with signals. They tried to get us away as quickly as they could. The further out of the caves we moved, the more we could think. Then there was a load of pain and I was in this really, _really_ weird place. It was like I was in Aqua's hideout again. But there was this really weird fog following me from behind. Then the floor was also filling slowly up with water, which was even weirder, because that never happened."

"Sounds sorta like what we went through," Marsha said. "Pain, but we were trapped in this icy tundra, with the fog chasing us too."

"I was in tunnels too," I told them. "Still with the fog. I heard something moving in it at one point though."

Wally looked at me like I'd grown a second head, glanced at Marsha and finally frowned.

"I didn't have that,"Wally clarified. "But I don't think that's our main concern now. After that, we woke up. We found ourselves in a different place. There were no pokémon there and our own ones were acting really weird. Then the fog from the weird dream or whatever it was appeared. Something was in it, but we couldn't see what it was. Then just all of a sudden, almost all the pokémon in here attacked us. They were backing us into a corner and the thing in the fog seemed to be leading them. I thought we were down for, so I provided a distraction so that the others could escape." He shrugged at Marsha's groan. "It's not like I've got a long life ahead of me anyhow."

"Wally!" Marsha growled and punched him on the arm. "Don't say that!"

"It's true though," he muttered.

I shrugged and glanced at his pokémon again. "Way I see it, you would have got out anyway. That thing there-" I pointed at the flying cockroach, "took out that entire flock of golbat and crobat. You also seemed to be taking out the pokémon pretty easily."

He shrugged and smiled at his pokémon. "Maybe. But we've been fighting for nearly a day now. We'd have eventually tired out and been killed. That's my magnezone," he said, pointing at the flying insect. "With all the intense electrical energies in here, it's constantly producing a little charge in the air. So whatever electrical attacks you use end up being beastly. The only problem is that it tires him out." He sat up fully, leaning against the wall and scratched his delcatty's head as it rubbed against him. "So how the hell did you even know how to find me here? And _what_ the hell are you doing here? Your pokémon aren't strong enough in here. You know that full well. You could have been killed!"

"So I was supposed to sit around and worry myself to death about you!" Marsha sighed and shook her head. "Your dusknoir said you were in trouble. I didn't know what to do. You know you'd have done the same in my position."

"I wouldn't have been stupid enough to run into a death trap after my fatally ill cousin!"

The slap echoed all through the cavern. Wally's pokémon hissed and advanced on Marsha, but a simple wave of the hand from Wally stopped them all in their tracks.

Marsha was facing the floor, her shoulders shaking. "Don't say that. Just _don't_. You're my family Wally. Of course I'd risk my life to save you. Why do you always have to play the shortened lifespan card every time you're in a bad situation? Jackass." She tsked and jumped to her feet. "If you want to be such an ass, fine. But don't damn well do it after I've just risked everything to save you, alright? I could have died here. My pokémon could have died here. I volunteered this one here to follow me in here and he and his pokémon could have died too! And what do you say? Thanks? No! It's '_ooh, don't bother because I'll die soon anyhow'_."

He sighed. "I'm sorry, alright? I don't like having to have help. Even if you've saved my life. Everyone's always thrown away everything just to look after me; Mum, Dad, our Uncle's family… hell, even _your_ family made sacrifices to help me! I'm just fed up of feeling like the family burden."

I didn't want to get involved, but the little _tinks_ of something crashing against ice were starting to make me more than a little nervous. "Uh, guys, as important as this is for you two, I'm pretty sure we should get moving. Those things are getting through that ice shield slowly. I don't wanna be here when they finally get through."

Wally pulled a face, shrugged, pushed himself to his feet, winced and fell back into the wall. "He's right. We should really get moving. We're not too far from the exit. There's something weird going on in here though; pokémon native to only Sinnoh, Johto and Kanto have been appearing in here. That electrode was one of them. There were a bunch of sneasel too a while back. I'm starting to think that all these dangerous caverns are connected."

"Oh dear god I hope not," Marsha whispered. "Alright, let's leave here."

It took what felt like the better part of a day to finally escape the tunnels. Having Wally with us was nothing short of a blessing – his pokémon were fearsome enough that most of the wild pokémon would avoid us as much as they could. The ones that didn't were usually just taken out without any obvious effort.

The sight of sunlight after everything was such a blessing. The light was nearly blinding at first, but it soon became something I wished to never lose again. Marsha and I both had to carry Wally. He'd broken his ankle at one point before we'd met him, though his gardevoir often helped by just simply levitating him alongside it.

I fell asleep on the helicopter back – somehow – and was only woken up when we'd landed. There was a strong smell of wet leaves, pollen and a gentle warm breeze wafting around everywhere. Part of a mountain loomed in the background and the distant sounds of exploud hooting in the distance could be heard.

"Verdanturf," Marsha explained to me as the helicopter blades died down. "It's near Mauville and Rustboro. Our cousins live here. Do you mind if I leave you here for a bit? Family stuff, you know?"

I nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. We uh, don't have to go back to that place to find… _it_, do we? I don't think we can survive that again."

Marsha bit her lip. "I'm not sure. Give me a day, then I'll meet up with you and we'll figure out what's happening."

"Stay away from the Cluster," Wally said as Marsha helped him out of the helicopter. "Whatever's down there isn't something we could tackle. If whatever you're after is down there, my advice is to wait for it to appear somewhere else."

"You don't need to tell me twice," Marsha sighed. "I'll fill you in on everything I got told about the Magma base, alright?" She looked to me and smiled. "Once I'm done here, I'll let you know what I find out for our case too, alright?"

"I don't need help walking, you know?" Wally muttered as Marsha tried to help him walk. She raised an eyebrow, let him put his weight on his ankle and smirked at his yelp of pain.

"Point?" she asked.

He glowered at her. "Fine. Thanks." He glanced at me afterwards. "You too. I appreciate the help."

"No problem," I said and watched them disappear past the little clearing we'd landed in and into the main town. I leapt out of the chopper, thanked the pilot and found my way into the little town myself. I checked the maps, saw that Mauville was nearby and considered visiting Chris. She was probably the only person I could think of that would know enough about pokémon to be able to tell me what could have caused the weird drug-like trips we all suffered.

I pressed Gemini's poké ball and let her out once more. She sighed, flicked her ears and sat down on the concrete floor. _[Finally. I take it the woman has left to treat her family?]_

I nodded. "Yeah. She's looking after him while we do what we want. I should get you guys healed, then I was thinking about one of my friends who might know about whatever caused that thing in the Cluster.

I frowned and scratched my chin as I read the map again, trying to find the pokémon centre. Instead I found myself forced off my feet as one of the poké balls on my bandolier burst open.

Alistair suddenly stood in front of me, little cuts darted over his body. He leant slightly against a lamppost. _[We need to talk, sir.]_

Alarm bells went off in my head. Then the pain from the dream came back again. I pressed my hands against either side of my head, squeezed as hard as I could and squinted at my pokémon. "What's up? And can it wait? My head _really_ hurts."

He scraped his elbow blades against each other. _[It is about that.]_

"What?"

_[Are you a complete and utter moron?]_

I winced and turned to face Gemini. "Just what are you talking about?"

Her face fell and she met my gaze. _[You. Being a moron. I thought that much would be obvious.]_

I sighed and rubbed my head. "Right. Just what have I done now?"

_[I did not know that you could be so stupid sir. I attempted to help Master Adryan and now… it seems that you have elected to do exactly the same.]_

I whirled on him. "What? I'm seriously confused."

Gemini snorted and rose to her feet. _[That does not surprise me. And to think; I honestly thought you better than this.]_

"Alright," I growled, losing my patience. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Gemini rolled her eyes. _[Do not try to hide it from us. We are psychics; we can sense these things. You made a deal. You saw the future. You have a tumour.]_

The pain in my head suddenly seemed so much worse than I could have ever imagined. "_What?_ What the fuck?" My insides burned cold and terror made me forget the pain in my head. "Tell me what the hell you're talking about. I haven't made any deals with any psychics!"

Alistair placed a hand on my shoulder. _[The swelling on your brain says otherwise, sir.]_

I grabbed at my head, almost as if my fingers could slip through my skull and grab at my brain. "What? I just… what? There's no way! The only psychics I could have done so with are you two and neither of you have tried to do that with me, have you?"

_[It happened round about the time the signal disappeared,]_ Gemini said. _[It obviously has something to do with that. I didn't say anything at the time as other things seemed to be taking priority.]_

"This…" I grabbed at my hair and pulled at it. I couldn't understand what the hell was going on. It all made no sense! Gemini only said that the signal had vanished just after we woke up from the weird dream thing we all experienced.

Something clicked and I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

I remembered everything about the weird dream; the icy tundra, the dark tunnels, the room with floor-pictures and the ever-present fog.

More than that, I remembered the last room, with the massive screen. The screen that played me continuous clips showing my death.

_That_ was my future?

I'd seen my future while unconscious, without any desire on my behalf. It had been thrust upon me and I had to suffer with its burden.

"That's impossible," I whispered. "I saw something when I was out – a big screen that showed me little images, but all it showed was me dying, over and over again in different ways. I survived some but… is _that_ my future?"

Gemini flicked her ears. She glanced over at Alistair and shared a silent conversation. Finally she looked back at me. _[Possibly. I cannot say. All that we can know is that whatever caused the dream… whatever caused your tumour… it is _incredibly_ powerful.]_

_[And clearly it wants you dead, sir.]_

Understatement of the freaking century.


	53. Memories

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Memories**

* * *

_Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than remember me and cry _~ Anon.

**-O-O-O-**

"_Everything unravels eventually. Be it time, patience or even your beloved sweater, soon enough it will be reduced to tiny little strands. The key isn't to hold onto the strands until there's nothing left, but to let them go so they can form something else that someone else may be able to enjoy."_

- Thorton Modnar, Battle Factory Brain 3003-3012._ (October 19__th__, 3007)_

**-O-O-O-**

"What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

I buried my face in my hands as I stared out of the windows in the pokémon centre. The windows were covered with the constant drizzling rain, the grey sombre sky reflecting my mood with almost eerie precision.

I'd tried researching as much as I could.

I came up with nothing.

There were little things on the internet – little spots of hope that were talking about some sort of weird pill or treatment that was being discovered or researched that could somehow help me. Every lead was a dead end though. Some more literally than others, with all of the test subjects dying within a few days. My own days were numbered, but I knew I'd rather live out a longer life rather than taking a pill and only having a couple of days.

There wasn't a single thing I could do, it seemed like. I scribbled out another line of useless information in a notepad and glared at the paper, as if it were to blame for everything wrong in my life.

Pain in my head stopped me from doing anything more. I hissed, slapped the side of my head and wondered just what the hell hated me that much that it would give me such a thing to suffer through.

Briefly I wondered whether or not one of my own psychics could have done so. Or maybe even one of Marsha's. It wasn't like I saw anything or anyone else in my dreams, after all. For all I knew, they could have used it all as an elaborate ruse to get rid of me.

I pulled the thought as quickly as I could. It wouldn't do me any good to become so paranoid I was distrusting my own pokémon. I told myself it wouldn't have happened – I had both Alistair and Lacey on my team. Alistair would have been too honour-bound to let something like that happen to me – I got the feeling he'd try and settle any problems he had with me through a duel. Lacey on the other hand wouldn't have let anything happen as it would interfere with her own plans. She seemed to want to see how everything was going to play out – with me out of the picture, she wouldn't have been able to see that much.

Something powerful was out to kill me. I decided it had to be the celebi. I couldn't think of anything else that would want to kill me so much. The only problem was trying to figure out a reason why it would do such a thing to me.

I sighed and tried not to think about it. Thinking hurt my head. My pokémon were busy being healed and helping the tumour to kill me wasn't exactly in my best intentions. I threw my notebook in my bag and checked myself into the pokémon centre, intent on getting at least one night's good sleep since leaving the Cluster.

* * *

_The meat rips with a sound I've grown so accustomed to. It sounds like someone tearing paper._

_Only this sounds a lot wetter and comes with a hefty stench too._

_The smell of roast swallow drifts around me, fills the little camp I have with a fragrance I haven't dared to think about in a long time. Yet it feels safer here, all the way in Mossdeep. It's taken me nearly three months, but I've managed to get from one side of the country to the other._

_I tell myself I'm just trying to survive._

_I know that really, I'm just seeking revenge._

_My mantine flutters around near the sea, breaking the surface and gliding over the ocean in quick leaps. A buzzing remains by my side – a large vespiquen that never seems to leave my side. I know I should normally be afraid. My every instinct that I've grown up with and nurtured tells me that I should be running. Yet I know she belongs to me. Little details about her still elude me – _what the hell is its name? – _but I know for certain she's loyal to me._

_A little shuppet floats around nearby, drifting through shadows and cackling as it scares things away. It glances at me, pokes it tongue and phases through a house, scaring whatever lies within. I curse, hope that there's no one inside – living or otherwise – and decide I need to train it more._

_The weight of two empty poké balls in the back of my pack feels heavy, even when it's not on my back. The weezing and the zangoose – _my_ pokémon – that no longer travel with me._

_That woman and her damned gyarados saw to that. I still don't know whether or not she meant to kill them. Her demeanour every time told me that she thought it no more than a joke. Yet each time she outsmarted me and got away while knocking me out._

_I rub my head, feel the scarred over cut at the back and tell myself it's not going to happen again. Even if I have to kill her, I'll make sure she doesn't do the same._

_Yet a little part of me wants to let her live. She's outsmarted me twice. It's something I've never really contended with – nothing ever seems to be able to outsmart a sniper at long-range. I respect her, but I hate myself for it._

_Something like glass smashes in the distance._

_I leap to my feet instantly, kick sand over the fire and glance around for any threat. The vespiquen hisses something near my ear, mandibles clacking wildly. The mantine shouts as it glides in to shore, hovers around us both and stays at least a foot above the ground all the while._

_The shuppet floats back to us quickly, cackling all the while. I curse, wonder why the hell I even decided to catch it and hope that it only knocked something over in an empty house._

_Then I hear the screams._

_I curse and glance back to the ocean. The tide's too strong right now. If we went out in it, I'd be crushed and left for sharpedo bait at the bottom of the ocean. I need to stay alive and right now, that looks like it means I have to fight my way out of a little island._

_It's been about an hour since the tide came in and got violent. It cycles every four hours._

_I need to survive for three hours until I can escape._

_It sounds simple enough to the ears. _

_Until I remember the hordes of things ready to eat me and my pokémon._

_I check my gun. Loaded. Three clips weigh heavily in my pockets. I've got a shotgun nearby with maybe thirty spare shells if I'm lucky. After that, I'm pretty much boned._

_I do have the sniper rifle lying in my pack. But I need to unpack and assemble it. It might not take long, but I don't want to risk one of the fast ones coming up too close._

"_Get ready," I tell my pokémon. "We've got a battle on our hands in a minute."_

_Strangely enough, nothing comes our way. We're left in silence, waiting there, increasingly agitated as the screams continue in the town. I frown, convinced someone's either dying or they're luring people in. I sigh, wonder just what the hell's going on when something grey and rotting shambles out on the hill above. It notices us, moans and takes a step, only to fall down the hillside and land in a crumpled heap at the bottom._

_It takes a lot for me not to just laugh at the thing then and there. It groans feebly on the floor, still reaching at me and my pokémon. I roll my eyes, stalk forwards with my gun still trained on it and with all my body weight in one blow, stamp down on its rotting face._

_Dark, dank blood splashes everywhere. I pull a face, shake what I can off my shoe and glance around. There's nothing else there. The screams have stopped, but I don't know why._

_I know I shouldn't investigate. But I need to. If the things are here, they might be nearby. I'm not safe on the seafront. The sea's too dangerous to escape in. The only other way out would be through the things if they came. I don't want to risk it._

_I nod for my pokémon to follow me and jog towards town. Rotting dead line the floors, each of them showing signs of battle. All of them are dead and down, this time for definite._

_I'm not alone._

_I wonder just who the hell I might find when I pass by the remains of a store. Mirros line the entirety of the inside, reflecting me back at myself._

_It's strange – I'm older than I remember._

_Something moves behind the mirrors. I jump, then grip my gun tighter and inch closer. I spot blonde hair that seems quite long. The face is soft, yet hard at the same time._

_Whoever she is, something about her seems familiar. I step up on my tiptoes, catch her face and lose my breath for a moment. I recognise her!_

_It's not the woman who killed my pokémon. It's someone else._

_Someone familiar._

_I just can't remember who._

_Then like a shot, it hits me._

* * *

When I woke up I was still a little shaken. The woman with blonde hair remained in my mind's eye. No matter how much I tried to think of something else, she remained there in my mind, red warning bells going off at the same time.

There's no way in hell Marsha should have been there.

I rolled over in my bed and reached for my phone. It was a little after oh-four hundred and still dark outside. I had no idea whether or not she would actually be awake. But I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep after seeing such a thing.

I hit the call button and rolled back over, waiting for her to wake. It took all of five rings for her to pick up.

"What?" she grunted, half asleep.

I coughed; suddenly realising I'd likely woken her. "Urm, were you asleep?"

"No," she drawled and I could practically hear her eyes rolling. "I was busy refining my stamp collection. Of _course_ I was asleep, you nitwit! And I was having a really weird dream too." She stopped, left me in silence for a moment and finally grunted. "I think you were in it. Weird."

I bit my lip as more warning bells went off in my head. There were too many coincidences dancing around.

"The celebi," I finally said. "Why are you after it?"

She sighed. "Is that what you're phoning about? At _this_ time of the morning? _Really?_"

"Really."

"You know why. Part of my job-"

"Is it really about your job though?" I wanted to ask if she was from the future too. It didn't seem right for her to appear in weird dreams I was having that seemed to be from the world I grew up in.

"Is it really – _of course_ it damn well is!" Something crunched in the background, like she was strangling a plastic bottle with her free hand. "You think I'd really waste my time hunting down a create of legend if I wasn't being paid for it? Do you know how many people have wandered into the forests in search of something like Celebi or Mew and never come back? What the hell's bringing this on?"

"Just…" I shook my head and realised how stupid I sounded. "It's nothing. Sorry I woke you."

"That it?" she growled. "You wake me up; question me about who knows what and now you think an apology will cover all of that? What's this really about?"

"Nothing," I said reflexively. I realised I wasn't going to get anywhere with any of this and knew that eventually I'd have to give her an explanation. "Look, I'll tell you another time, alright? Whenever Wally's better and we meet up again, I'll explain a few things for you."

There was a long silence that started to unnerve me. "Alright," she said finally, tone blank. I felt my heart race a little, scared of what it could all mean when she hung up and I wondered just whether or not I'd made a bit of a bad decision.

"This isn't going to end well," I said to myself. I ran a hand over my face, glanced again at my phone and lamented the sleep I wasn't going to get for the rest of the night. With nothing left to do, I hopped into the shower and decided that I'd make my way towards Mauville. It seemed like Marsha was going to be busy with Wally for a while and I felt like visiting Chris. I knew she could help me with a few things. More than anything, I was hoping that she would be able to help me narrow down the mysterious psychic that chose my brain as a play thing.

I made my way downstairs and collected my pokémon from the nurse working at the unholy hour. The air outside was cold, crisp and so fresh it felt like my nose was on fire.

Speaking of fire, I let Scar out of his poké ball for some company. He gave me a strange look once he emerged, almost like he already knew something was wrong. He sniffed at me, growled something I couldn't understand and poked his own head with a claw.

"I don't know how this has happened," I said, guessing it was what he was talking about. "Something has it out for me. Something psychic and powerful."

The mention of psychic made me remember Gemini. I let her out of her poké ball, watched her stretch and take in the new sights before she fixed her gaze on me.

_[Finally. You would think it would be too much to ask for to not be contained in one of those capsules for extended periods of time.]_

I rolled my eyes. "You needed healing. Easiest way to do that was to put you in your poké ball. And besides, there's pokémon that can let themselves out of their poké balls on their own; if it's such a problem for you, why don't you let yourself out when you need it?"

She faltered for words, snapped her head away from me and trotted away with her nose held indignantly in the air. I smirked to myself and heard Scar snicker a little beside me.

"So anyway, something powerful has it out for me," I continued to Scar. "Don't know what it is, but it's likely whatever was hiding in the Cluster and creating that really weird hazy fog. You got any ideas what that thing was yet Gemini?"

She shrugged. _[I cannot tell. I have never encountered such a pokémon before. If we encounter it again, I may be able to tell you what it was.]_

It was nowhere near as helpful an answer as I hoped she would give. I only had two real hopes left for figuring out what the thing was; either discovering it on my own, or actually meeting the thing and finding out from it first-hand.

I didn't know which one I wanted more.

* * *

Yet again I found myself at the familiar ranch. The sounds of pokémon all around were as loud as ever and nothing seemed to have even changed.

I rang the doorbell and stood there for a good few minutes until it was finally answered. There stood Chris, wearing only a large shirt, her hair everywhere and her artificial arm not even attached.

"What?" she grunted sleepily. "It's not even seven. I'm sleepy. Go away now."

"Chris?" I said before she could shut the door. She blinked, waking up slightly and squinted at me as if I were a hallucination. "Urm, hi."

She stared at me for a moment longer, pinched her shoulder and finally sighed. "So I'm not dreaming then. Great. What's up? I'm running on two hours sleep and no caffeine at the moment, so please say that something important has happened."

I rubbed the back of my head. "I suppose you could say that."

She sighed again, rubbed her eyes with a hand and pulled back the door. "Fine, come in. Give me a few minutes to administer caffeine into my veins and become slightly human. And make sure your girafarig doesn't cause a mess in my place. I've only just tidied up."

I nodded and slipped past her into her house. Gemini followed after me, remaining silent the entire time and moving carefully around everything in the house. She stood next to the couch as I sat down in it and watched Chris as she practically inhaled what seemed to be a metric tonne of energy drinks.

_[I take it you trust this woman then?]_ Gemini asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah. She's helped me through a lot. I'm hoping she might be able to help figure out what the hell happened in the Cluster. She's also really good friends with Adryan, so I might be able to find out from her what's happened in Lavaridge in that place."

_[And if she knows nothing?]_

I stared down at my feet. "Well… it'll be nice to see my friends one more time, if this thing is really out to kill me."

Chris shuffled back into the room before Gemini could say anything. She'd pulled on a pair of shorts from somewhere and fixed her hair into a ponytail, but still looked as half asleep as ever. "Here," she said, pressing a mug into my hands.

I looked down at the contents and pulled a face. "Uh, Chris? You realise you've left a teabag in coffee?"

She blinked, looked into her own mug and swore. "Sorry. I'm _really_ not with it. I'll sort that out for you."

"It's alright," I said quickly, pulled out the teabag and put it in an empty takeaway container. "Really, it's fine. I could do with the extra wake up call."

"Right," she said sleepily, seemingly falling asleep as she breathed in the smell of her coffee. "I'm awake," she said as I waved in front of her face. "Just… let all those energy drinks kick in. Long night. A few eggs here hatched last night. Baby miltank are loud, let me tell you that. I spent most of last night helping their mother get them ready for the night. And securing the field so that wild pokémon won't be able to sneak in and eat them."

"Oh," I said, feeling guilty. Twice in the space of a morning I'd woken up two of my friends. "I can come back later, if you want?"

"It's alright." She shook her head, blinked and rubbed her face again. "I'm awake. It's all kicking in now. If I go insane, I've just drank too much energy boosters, alright?" She took a long swig from her drink before asking me, "So why are you here? Is this to do with Adryan and your falling out?"

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "Sort of. Not really. I don't know to be honest. How much of it all did he tell you?"

"Enough. Right now, I'm too tired to care about the arguments you might have planned for yourself. Your pokémon killed his; you kept quiet about it. Then you threw it all in his face when you found out that he'd been a bit silly with trying to figure out the future." She sighed and rubbed her head. "I swear, as long as I've known him, he's always wanted to save the world. I told him it would kill him but…" She looked away, pained and tried to cover it as quickly as she could. "I don't like what you did. I also don't like what he did. You're my friend, he's one of my best friends. All I can say is that you're both in the wrong, but you're both right to do what you did at the same time. I'm not taking sides in this."

I wanted to know if he'd mentioned to her that he'd killed an innocent just because he thought the man had killed his pokémon. Instead I kept my mouth shut. I knew better than to try and turn Chris against Adryan. Instead I sighed and stared at the murky brown liquid floating around in my mug.

_[If you don't tell her what you came to, I will.]_

I glared at Gemini, then stared at the floor again. "I honestly don't know where to start."

"How about after the fiasco in the old Magma base?" Chris suggested. "Ayd said you found a load of bodies and… mush in there. Then something happened that forced you two apart, then you turned up at his, took your gallade back and you vanished with some black haired woman."

I looked up sharply. "You know a lot about what's been going on, don't you?"

She shrugged. "Ayd and I are close. He's like a brother to me. I know all his dark little secrets and he knows mine. Despite everything he may or may not have done, I still trust him more than anyone."

"Right," I sighed. No pressure. I swirled my drink and decided that I should probably start from where she left off.

Instead what came out was, "I've been having really weird dreams."

Chris stared at me, unblinking for a long moment. Finally she groaned and fell back into the chair. "So you're telling me you came all this way, woke me up at this time of the morning to tell me you've been having weird dreams?"

I shook my head. "No, but – I don't know! It feels like they're more than dreams. But they're always around the future – the one I grew up in. I don't get it, but they're getting stronger and my kidneys always hurt after I've had the dreams and they seem more and more real."

Chris rubbed her eyelids. "Alright. I see why that's freaking you out. But honestly, I'm not an expert there. You'd have to ask someone that knows something about psychic powers to understand what's going on there. What about your girafarig? She tell you anything?"

I glanced at Gemini and shook my head. "Nothing. Aside from commenting that they're interesting."

Chris pursed her lips, glanced at Gemini and then back to me. "Interesting," she said.

"Exactly," I grunted. "But that's not the real reason I came here. I went to the Cluster-"

"You went to the_ Cluster?" _Chris was on her feet and nearly spitting acid. "Are you _completely_ insane? Do you have a death wish? What the holy hell were you doing in there?"

"Investigating," I said. "I got a lead celebi might have been there. The one that brought me here. I wanted to go after it. I was with the black haired woman – her name's Marsha. Everything down there was weird. There were almost no pokémon moving around in there. And there was a really strong signal or something in there. It was making a fog in our minds, making it so that we couldn't think. We were just following it, slowly falling prey to it until our psychics warned us about it all.

"Then well, something knocked us out. There was this really weird sort of dream that we all shared, but little details in it all were different. Then later on, my psychics told me that somehow… whatever had done it had given me a tumour."

Chris sat there, stunned. It took her a couple of attempts to even form words. "You… you have a tumour?" she whispered.

"Yeah." I kept staring at the floor, as if the answer to all my problems would appear over it. "I don't know how. I mean, I remember there being really weird things in my mind. Then there was this sort of… room. A big screen was there and it played out little scenes of me dying. Every time it was different. I was never the same age, nor was I ever in the same place."

"That's… pretty precise," Chris said. She stood up and started pacing, sipping her drink as she did so. "I mean, that's nothing like what I've heard. I spoke to Adryan after what he did. I've researched all the medical journals they have on witness accounts of doing such a thing. Every time, it was always the same story. It was like a fog of pictures and videos. They could never really tell what it all meant, but everything stuck with them. From that they had to try and figure everything out. This is… this is just… are you sure you didn't purposefully look into your own future somehow?"

I snorted. "Why, if given the entirety of the future to look at, would someone focus on their own death?"

"Good point," she agreed. "This just makes no sense. Actually, it makes less than no sense. What the hell was even hiding in there that did that?"

I shrugged. "I was hoping you might be able to help there."

She snorted. "Because I'm such an expert on pokémon, aren't I?" She sunk back into her chair, ran her hand through her hair and sighed. "I don't know. The Cluster… it's connected to elsewhere. The tunnels go underneath the earth and can reach places like Sinnoh, Johto and Kanto. Maybe even Unova, but I'm not sure about that. It basically means that it could belong to a really strong pokémon from any country."

"Great," I sighed. "But it's got to be something that has some form of psychic power, right?"

"Yeah." She stared off into the distance, thinking. "I don't remember anything about that in any of the journals I read. I'll have to have another look." She sighed. "There goes my day off. Seriously, can you and Adryan both just decide next time to not stare into the abyss?"

"I'll remember that in my next life," I said flatly.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "But I worry. And there's nothing that I've found that could get rid of that tumour. Not even surgeons can- it's right on the bit of your brain that controls all your subconscious functions like breathing. They can't cut it out without coming too close to removing a little part of that brain and screwing you over. I mean, you're my friends and I can't just let shit like this happen without trying to find a way to help."

She sighed, growled and balled her hand into a fist. Finally she screamed and threw her mug clean across the room, shattering it on the wall opposite. "You stupid _fucktards!_" she screamed as she leapt to her feet, pacing wildly. "What the hell is wrong with the both of you? I mean, _seriously?_ 'Oh look at the future, I can know everything there needs to be known, so what if it might kill me!'

"Did either of you stop to think that maybe, just _maybe_ there's people that don't want to see you die? I mean you, creepy child-soldier from the future, did you stop to think that there might be a way to solve problems without putting your head through the portal? Then there's Adryan who's got a great job, a fantastic boyfriend and a pretty awesome life who throws it all away just for a chance to play hero?" She screamed again, balled her hand into her hair and sunk to the floor. "Morons! You're both utter _morons!_"

"It's not my fault!" I cried. "I didn't exactly want this to happen!"

"But somehow it did," she snapped. "Just… urgh! First Ayd does this, now he's getting so much worse and you've gone along the same lines-"

"Ayd's gotten worse?"

She sniffed and flopped down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah. He thinks I can't notice, but he is."

I found myself speechless. When I last saw him, he didn't look too different to normal. Maybe a little thinner and paler, but not too different. Of course, it wasn't like I'd made an effort to talk to him about it all since he pretty much said he wanted me out of his life but still…

I was about to say something when my phone bleeped. I growled at it and opened it to find a text from Marsha.

_Mauville pokémon centre, one hour._

I glared at the screen and realised I'd have to leave right away to get there. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Urm, Chris? I've got to go. Something's come up and I need to sort it out?"

"More about your hunt for a time traveller?" she sniped.

I flinched. "Something like that. I can put it off if-"

"Go," she said flatly. "Just… go sort out whatever it is you need to do, alright? Whether you wanted to screw around with psychics or not, it's happened now. Don't waste what's left of your life."

"Right," I said. "So, I guess I'll see myself out then? Urm, thanks Chris, you know for-"

"Don't worry about it," she said, waving an arm, still lying on the floor. "Just do me a favour? Go see Adryan sometime soon."

"Sure," I said quickly. "Thanks." I waved for Gemini to follow me out of the house, feeling guiltier than ever about everything. Maybe telling Chris about it wasn't the best idea, but I needed to tell someone. Adryan hated me, Mia was dead and I still didn't totally trust Marsha.

I told myself that meeting up with Marsha was best. If I couldn't figure out where the celebi was and whether or not I could put the world right, at least I might be able to ask the Unovian agent just whether or not she was more connected to the time pixie than she let on.

* * *

"Took you long enough."

I found Marsha waiting outside the pokémon centre in Mauville dead on an hour later. She gave me a quick once over, smirked and then nodded towards the distance. "We need to head out. Lilycove's our destination. The old Aqua base in underwater over there, but that doesn't mean the only way to get in is through the ocean. I want to check out a few things over there – see if something in there matches what we found in the Magma base."

"Alright," I said. "When we leaving?"

"Now," she said and before I knew it, the world vanished in a blurry haze. Not even a second later it reappeared again, leaving me completely confused and my internal organs in what felt like an alternate dimension.

I doubled over and held my gut. "Please tell me the next time you plan on doing that. Some warning would be nice."

She laughed. "But where's the fun in that?" Her jynx appeared beside her in a flash of light, murmuring softly to her. I straightened up and looked around the town, taking in the old style architecture and looming cliff face at the edge. The sea crashed down below, audible even from a distance and the entire town seemed to be in situ from centuries before.

"Lilycove's a strange place," Marsha told me. "Every building here is protected, so when they're refurbished or whatever, the outside has to remain exactly the same. It's nice, but weird at the same time. But it's peaceful though."

"I suppose," I grunted. "How many people fall off that cliff and to their doom each year though?"

She shrugged. "Not as many as you'd think. But off the top of my head? I dunno. Come on," she said as she started walking. "We need to get to the beach. There's a little hut there which leads into where we need to get going."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you know this all how?"

She smiled. "Information's part of my job. It'd be pretty stupid to send me somewhere without telling me what I'm expecting, wouldn't it? Now that I know Wally's safe and sound, I can carry on with my job without worrying too much about him." She put her hands behind her head. "So where were you earlier?"

"Visiting a friend. How'd you know it'd only take me an hour to reach you in Mauville?"

She reached into a pocket and held out a little machine for me to see. "GPS. Not hard to track your phone wherever it is. You didn't think I'd let you get away that easily, did you? You know a lot about me and everything I've done; I can't just let you run away without keeping tabs on you."

I glanced at Gemini. She gave me a look that let me know Marsha was telling the truth.

"Well who would believe me anyway?" I grunted. "Not many people are likely to believe Unova have spies working as Sinnoan gym leaders."

"There's always someone that out there that will believe something. No matter what it is, at least one person will always believe it." She slid her phone back into her pocket and walked on ahead. "So what was that phone call this morning about?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Nothing."

"You expect me to believe that?" she stopped in her tracks and whirled around to glare at me. "You had something to say. You told me you'd explain things. Now start explaining."

"Easier said than done."

"I don't care how easy or hard it is. You wanted to tell me something? Tell me! What are you so afraid of?"

I snorted. "If I told you that, then you really would get suspicious." Her gaze remained impassive yet strangely coercive. "Look, I just… something happened and it freaked me out. Basically it made me question who you are and how much of what you've told me is actually true. And well… if there's a link between us that I didn't think was there before."

She raised an eyebrow. "This sounds like a really cheesy movie line. You aren't about to declare undying love for me are you? Because I'm taken."

"Not that," I said with a laugh. "It just made me wonder how close you are to the time travelling thing we've been hunting."

"Not close enough," she grunted. "At least if I were closer, I'd be able to figure out what it was up to or just where the hell it was. At the moment, I'm completely lost. Why, is that the thing that's meant to link us?"

I faltered, afraid I'd given away too much. As kind and friendly as Marsha was, she did seem to be on top of things in order to make sure I couldn't double cross her. More than that, she seemed devoted to her job. Telling her I was a time traveller probably wasn't the best idea.

Still, I figured I had to trust her a little. I'd just start off small.

"That celebi we're after? It brought someone through time. I met her for a little while; she told me a few things. Then she died."

"Celebi behind that?" Marsha asked, intrigued.

I shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not too certain. I just need to find out. Put the demons to rest, you know?"

She sighed and ruffled her hair. "Well, if that's true, it explains a few things. But I've never known anyone that could travel through time, not personally at least."

"What would you do if you knew one of them then?"

She folded her arms as something flashed in her eyes. "Dunno," she said, face impassive again. "It would depend, wouldn't it? I mean, our official protocol is to report anyone we know like that, but… I guess it's always a bit hard to find one person in amongst the billions that live on the planet, isn't it? Especially if they don't actually exist." She threw her arms up and turned around again. "I really don't know. Guess we won't know until I meet one of these mysterious people, huh?"

"Yeah, I suppose so," I said distantly.

Then without warning, Marsha suddenly stopped. Gemini threw me a glance I didn't quite understand and even the jynx seemed a little unnerved.

"You're the one connected with The Celebi, aren't you?" Marsha said, voice no more than a whisper.

I felt something worse than fear hit me. "N-no! Of course not."

"Then why haven't I been able to find you on any database?" She put a hand on her head and sighed. "Look, I don't know why you're not in the systems. But don't treat me like an idiot. I was willing to pretend I hadn't figured things out until you dropped the really obvious hint like that."

"Oh," I said stupidly. "So… how long have you known?"

She shrugged. "Long enough. Before I met you again here in Hoenn. Well, I didn't know, but I suspected that something wasn't right. To be honest, I thought you were living under a fake name or maybe even a high-up government official. Now you've gone and dropped that bombshell…"

"Well…" I sighed and decided that there was no point now in trying to hide anything. "Alright then. Truth is, the celebi we're after is a busy thing. It pulled me from my time eighty years from now and plonked me here. All I know is I'm meant to stop my war torn, barren wasteland of a future from happening. And I'm a little freaked because I keep having really weird dreams where I'm in my future, but older than I am now and further in the future than when I left. And in the latest one, you were there too, which is more than a little strange."

She barked a laugh. "Well I'm definitely from this time zone. Unless everything I know is a lie." She glanced back and looked down at the beach. "I need to do this mission. When I report in, there's psychics around that scan my brain to let them know if I'm telling them everything. There's little things I can do to trick them, but it can't really go more than a conversation. You've helped me out on a lot, but you've given the game away now." She sighed and nodded towards the other end of town. "Get going. I've got this job to do, then I need to report in and they're going to be after you."

I balked and backed away a step. "So, how long do I have before your guys start chasing me to the end of the earth?"

She shrugged. "A couple of days, maybe? That's the longest I can delay everything for. This is me thanking you for helping me with Wally. Otherwise, I'd turn you in here and now."

"Uh, okay. Thanks, I guess."

She shook her head and walked away. "Don't thank me. Disappear."

I took her advice and walked as fast as I could to the other end of town. My heart was racing all the while. I knew it was stupid to press my questions as I did. But I needed answers. Answers I never got.

All it got me was running for my life from clandestine government agents.

_[I don't understand why you didn't just kill her.]_

I shook my head at Gemini. "Wouldn't do any good. Remember that trick she used with the dusknoir? She had to have learnt it from somewhere. Easier for me to disappear rather than me killing her. She's been nice to me, I don't really want to kill her. That and I don't want her buddies chasing after me in revenge."

_[So where do you wish to go from here? Was she not our only lead in order to find our target?]_

I shrugged. "Maybe. But think of everything that's been happening. It's all linked somehow. Once we figure out how, we can tie together where our friend might have vanished to."

I was on autopilot as I tried to make my way out of the city. Instead I ended up heading towards the edges of the cliff, near the large, looming lighthouse and watched the waves far below crash against each other.

I didn't understand why I'd walked there. My aim was to escape the city, yet I'd ended up trapped by the ocean, almost like in my really weird dream.

And like in the dream, I could hear someone trying to train their pokémon.

It was all a bit weird. I shook my head to clear it and told Gemini that we were leaving. As we tried to leave, a little tiny pig bounced along the grass in front of us, snorting a sound like laughter.

Not far behind the spoink was its trainer. As soon as I noticed her, I froze in place. It was like a ghost had come to haunt me.

A ghost, wearing a familiar trilby hat.


	54. Into the Nothing

**Into the Nothing**

**-O-O-O-**

"Hey beautiful."

She groaned, stirred slightly and didn't even need to open her eyes to know a pair of bright blue ones were staring right back at her. She snorted, reached up with her hand, found his face and shoved him away with sleepy strength.

"Creep. Go away. Sleeping."

She heard him laugh, then felt the warmth of his body cover her own. "Come on. I've got to leave for work in an hour. Please?"

"Creep." She sighed, forced her eyes open and took a long moment to focus. "What are you after this time?" she asked, tucking her arm underneath her pillow subconsciously.

He laughed in her ear. "Do you really have to ask? Come on Chris, I've got a twelve hour shift. You wouldn't want to make me think about you all day and accidentally replace someone's liver with their spleen, would you?"

She laughed, rolled over and pushed him away. "You're a nurse, not a surgeon. You check pulses and look after patients, last time I checked. Who would let _you_ near an open body?"

He smirked. "There's one body I'm allowed near." His head disappeared beneath the covers and all of a sudden she yelped and jumped around the bed.

"N-no!" she cried between laughs. "Jon, s-stop that! Dammit, I need to pee!"

His head poked back out of the covers, duvet wrapped around his head like a scarf. "And is that more important than me? Come on, you know you want to stay right here."

He gave her the wounded puppy look. She laughed, clocked him on the head with a pillow and made her way to the adjoining bathroom. "Peeing now," she told him. Once the door was almost shut, she poked her head round and winked. "Though if you're good, I might let you join me in the shower."

The sound of him falling out of the bed in his haste was something she never got tired of.

* * *

It was another late night that she spent working round the clock, making ends meet and just generally making sure her life didn't fall down the proverbial drainpipe anytime soon.

"Okay, so carry the two and… no that's not right."

She sighed at the long list of numbers before her. Sure she'd usually have one of her employees or her interns do it, but she'd usually only end up double checking the figures again later. She hated maths, there was no two ways about it. She felt like calling her mother once more, asking her if she could scan over her figures and let the old woman sort it out again. Of course, she'd never here the end of it, but her accountant wanted to know just how much money she had earned this quarter.

The thought made her laugh. She had an accountant. It was the little things like that which made her realise just how far she'd come in her life. She actually paid a man to go over things and make sure that all her figures were correct. Of course, he was also paid to balance all her books, but she couldn't let him do it all by himself. She didn't know whether it was OCD or a lack of trust, but she could never just let someone else do all her work for her.

She sighed, pushed herself up and staggered into the kitchen like a drunk. She found the coffee, waited for the kettle to boil and stole a glance at the clock. Four a.m., with a meeting with new clients in three hours. She definitely wasn't getting any sleep.

She sighed into her coffee, dipped her fingers into the liquid and rubbed them across her eyes. The little bit of heat woke her up a little, enough to hopefully do the rest of her accounts and grab a powernap before her meeting. It wasn't everyday she had a Champion trainer from another country offer to let her use their pokémon for studs.

She shuffled back into her room and found someone already hunched over her desk, filling out all her forms for her.

With a smile, Jonathon leant back in his seat and winked at her. "Hey babe. You forgot to add in the costs for all those new fixtures you had to install last month. And then you forgot to carry a four somewhere at the start."

She swayed on the spot, convinced she'd fallen asleep sometime on her desk. "Jon? What are you – when did you get here?"

He swivelled round in the chair, stole her precious anti-sleep drink from her and took a long sip. "Maybe about two minutes ago? I used the key you gave me, but I figured you were asleep and didn't go around shouting, just in case I woke you."

She snorted. "Fat chance of that." A yawn crept its way past all her defences and won the fight against her. "So what do my books look like?"

He grinned. "Old. And musty. You really should do this all on a computer, you know?"

She laughed and punched him on the shoulder. "Yeah, like last time, when the computer died and no one knew how to add up without a calculator to hand? And don't forget all the accounts for that year were lost. Easier to do them all at first by hand."

A shameless smile grew on his face. "Well, you didn't have me then. Uh-uh!" He pulled her ledger out of her reach and pointed towards the bed. "You've got a meeting in the morning, don't you? Sleep. I'll do this for you."

She tried to deny it all, only for another yawn to win against her. "It doesn't matter. You've just pulled eighteen straight hours at work. This is _my_ work. Let me worry about it."

She lunged for her book, only for him to hold it far above his head and out of her reach. "Chris, leave this to me, alright? You sleep. I'll have it all done by the time you wake up. Which is in about two hours, by the way."

She was about to argue further when he simply tossed her over his shoulder. She yelped, wondered just when the hell he became strong enough to do such a thing and decided she definitely needed to remember he could do so. He let her drop onto the bed and before she even realised it, she'd been tucked in and was already sleeping when he wanted to ask something important.

* * *

It was one of those moments she'd always dreamt of.

She could remember being a little girl, playing with her dolls and talking with her sisters about what it would be like when they grew up. Who would be doing what, who would be wearing what and most importantly – who they'd be married to.

She could still remember her choice back then. Bruno of the Kanto Elites. Now the thought was but a distant memory, forgotten in the haze and experiences of her life.

It really was the perfect night for it. She was sat in the top carriage of the Ferris wheel in Nimbasa, with fireworks glittering blue, red and green in the night sky.

She felt hideously overdressed for the occasion, in her dark purple dress with long sleeves – of course they had to be long. Even now she felt uncomfortable showing off her fake arm around people she didn't know. Of course, none of that mattered, considering that she was only one of two people in the entire carriage.

And the only over person with her had just decided to ask an all important question.

_The_ question.

"I-I," she stuttered, unable to speak. Her hand pressed over her heart, felt it race beneath her breast almost like she'd been running for her life. He was knelt before her, clean shaven, hair cropped and wearing a suit that somehow made him seem just a little bit more rugged than he actually was.

He saw her hesitation and couldn't hide the pain that swept across his face. "Right, stupid idea. I should never have asked."

He was stood up before she realised she wasn't actually dreaming. "Jonathon," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder. He spun around to look at her, hope in his eyes.

And then she burst out laughing.

"I'm so sorry," she said as tears filtered out of her eyes. "I'm not – I'm not laughing at you."

He turned around and stared out of the window. "It seems kinda like you are right now though."

"I'm not!" She hugged him from behind, wrapped her arms around his chest and buried her nose in the back on his neck. "It's just… a bit sudden, is all. We've only been going out four months. Do you really think proposing that quickly is such a great idea?"

He leant back, resting his head atop hers. "Well… yeah."

She laughed again. "Four months… it's a short time to decide whether or not you want to spend your entire life with someone. I'm not sure yet. I love you, but I don't want to rush into things."

He spun out of her grasp to face her. "Who's rushing? I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want our hell spawn to be running around, terrorising us and giving their grandparents grief. And besides, what woman doesn't want the biggest rock possible on her finger?"

He slid the box out and showed her it again. This time, she had to sit down to carry on laughing. Inside the box was the largest rock she'd ever seen.

Of course, it being Jonathon, he didn't present her with a diamond.

No, he presented her with a massive granite slab he'd found in the street.

With a ring attached to the bottom of it.

It was sweet, in a sort of 'my girlfriend's going to kill me' sort of way.

He pulled a face and sat down next to her. "You know, most guys don't really get their proposals shot down with continuous laughter."

"Most guys don't present their girlfriends with a slab of granite."

"True that."

She burst out laughing again. He slid his arm around her shoulders and she rested her head against him. "You're one of a kind, you know that? Tell you what; ask me again once we've been going out a year. I might be inclined to say yes then."

He dropped off the seats in shock and pulled her down with him. She screamed, laughed at the stupidity of it all and screamed again as he picked her up and spun her round the room.

"Next time though," she said, catching her breath. "I want a real diamond. Or I'll use this rock to beat your brains in."

* * *

It was when she got back to Hoenn that everything started to fall apart.

She was at dinner with her sisters. Her big sister was going on about something unimportant – Chris really did have no idea what she was talking about. Probably to do with how she'd gotten pregnant, _again._ The woman was more fertile than a genetically altered ditto!

She got an image of her sister hooked up to a load of machines, popping out babies like an abused miltank at an illegal farm. A gross, incredibly wrong thought.

But it made her snort soup out of her nose anyway.

Her little sister burst out laughing and nearly fell off her chair. Of course the eldest sat there and glared, not appreciating the attention going elsewhere one bit.

Chris choked on the soup still in her throat, blew what remained in her nose into a napkin and hurriedly excused herself from the table. In the bathroom she found herself staring at the mirror, torn between laughing and crying.

Her older sister was twenty-six. Just two years older than Chris herself. And everything always seemed to fall in place for her. She fell in love when she was sixteen, got married at eighteen, had twins when she was twenty and then another set of twins at twenty-three.

And now she was expecting triplets.

Her movie was like the stereotypical diabetes-sweet romance flick.

Chris on the other hand, felt like her life was a sappy, pity-me sort of movie in comparison.

She'd fallen in love with her first boyfriend when she was just fifteen. Of course, once she did the deed with him, he decided to move onto the next sweet, innocent young girl. Two years later she had a relationship that completely fell apart when he cheated on her with one of her best friends. Then one boyfriend got mauled to death by an angry luxray and the next committed suicide when his family were killed in a house fire that he accidentally started.

And of course, in between all of that, she lost her arm to her own stupidity and a territorial parasect.

All of that before she'd even hit twenty-one.

There were times when she wished she had her big sister's life; where everything seemed to fall into place so damn neatly. She was proud of what she had accomplished, sure. She wouldn't trade it in for the world. But some days, when she saw the amount of work she would have to do to keep her business running, she couldn't help but want an easy fix to it all.

She scowled at the mirror and blamed it for letting her mascara betray her emotions. She felt so bad that she was jealous of her sister in what should be a happy time.

She was about to put on a happy face and be there like a good sister should be when her phone rang. She fished through her purse, frowned at the unrecognised number and hoped it wasn't some sort of trainer wanting to get some sort of uber-powerful riolu or ralts from her.

She slid the phone open and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"

"H-hello?" The person on the other end sounded familiar. She couldn't tell where from. All she heard was a Hoenn accent and a nervous waver in his voice. "Is this Chris?"

"It is." She trapped her phone between her head and her shoulder as she tried to reapply her face. "Who's calling?"

"It's Simon. Ayd's boyfriend?"

"Oh hi!" she said, brightening instantly. She forgot all about her makeup and cheerily held the phone to her ear normally. "What's the matter? Are you planning something you don't want Ayd to know about? Or has he gotten stuck in something weird again. Because I told him I don't want to be there if there's anything involving a vacuum cleaner again…"

"It's not that," Simon said quickly. She frowned at his tone, not liking the seriousness of it. When she met him he was all smiles and laughter. She thought it was strange for a lawyer to be so funny, but then again, she didn't really know too many anyway. "It's about Ayd…"

She sighed and pressed a hand to his head. "What's he done this time? Have you guys had a fight or something?"

"Sort of. Well, yeah, but I think you need to know what about."

Confusion coloured her face. "Why? What's the matter?"

"I… I don't want to really say over the phone. Can you come round?"

She sighed and glanced back towards the bathroom door. Another woman walked in, glanced at her fake arm, then hastily smiled at her and disappeared into one of the cubicles. Chris glared in the woman's direction, made an unseen gesture at her and looked back at the main door. "Can it wait? I'm kind of in the middle of something."

There was a long pause.

"Simon? Are you even still there?"

He coughed down the phone at her. "I'm here. Sorry. I thought Ayd was back. Well, I'm not sure if it can wait. It's serious. Deadly serious. I don't know what to do and I really don't know just how serious this might become."

She was about to tell him she'd be there in the morning, but something in his tone worried her. She couldn't claim to be an expert in reading humans, but she was fairly certain that there was a lot more going on that she didn't know about. A horrible feeling settled in her stomach like a lead weight and she swallowed back the horrible taste building in her throat.

"I'll be there in five minutes," she told him. "Are you at Ayd's?"

"Yeah."

"Alright then. I'll teleport there as quickly as I can."

She hung up the phone and stared at it, nervous beyond all belief. She tried to figure out just what the hell could be wrong, but nothing seemed to add up in her mind. There wouldn't be anything that really required her presence there, unless one of them had suddenly decided he was in love with her.

She snorted at the thought. She made her way quickly back to the table with her sisters and found them in the middle of a conversation about baby names.

"Whatever you do, don't listen to Dad," she said over them both. "Remember what he wanted to name your first set of twins? _Chastity _and _Prudence._"

All three of them made an identical face.

"Anyway, I need to run," said Chris. She fished into her handbag, pulled out her purse and left a few notes in the middle of the table. "That should cover me. Sorry, but I've really got to run. One of my friends might be in trouble. Come visit next weekend, all right?"

She was halfway out the door before they could even reply. Her hands dove into her bag again and found a bright blue great ball staring up at her. A press of a button and a flick of her wrist found her with an arcanine sat before her, staring at her with old, intelligent eyes attempting the cute-puppy look.

"Not now Khan," she said dismissively. "I need you to teleport me to Adryan's. You know the place, don't you boy?"

The pokémon stood up on all fours, towering above her by at least half a foot and barked. She smiled at him, wrapped her arm around his neck and closed her eyes as the familiar feeling of weightlessness surrounded her. Almost instantly she smelt the gentle waft of wood fires and ashes in the air. She opened her eyes, found herself standing in front of Adryan's house and patted her arcanine one the head.

"Thanks boy," she said and quickly recalled him.

Standing in front of the house, she suddenly found her nerves increase tenfold. The entire house was silent. Eerily so.

A million thoughts went round in her head. Maybe they'd had a massive fight and Simon had killed Adryan. Maybe Adryan had mentioned the people he'd helped into the grave while he was a travelling trainer. Maybe that one that he mistakenly thought had killed his rapidash.

She took a deep breath and tried to clear the thoughts away. No matter what, he was still her best friend first. If Simon had found out anything, she'd defend Adryan as much as she could.

The door opened before she could even knock. Simon was stood behind it, a grim smile plastered over his somewhat pale face. His black hair was all over the place and his dark green eyes were all bloodshot and somewhat puffy.

She slipped out of her heels as she got through the door and kicked them onto the rack. Adryan's castform was floating happily through the house, greeted her happily with a squee and a lick, then glided outside to the tropius nesting outside.

She looked back to Simon, who was stood in the kitchen, wringing his hands nervously. "Can I, uh, offer you a drink or something?"

She shook her head. "It's all right. Just tell me what's going on."

He took a deep breath, pulled at his top and nodded behind her. "You… you might want to sit down for this."

The nervousness she felt exploded into full on panic. "What's happened?" she shouted more than said. "Is Adryan okay?"

Simon's gaze was on the floor. Slowly he looked back up, met her eyes and bit his lip. "Honestly? Far from it."

She managed to stop herself from wringing Simon's neck then and there. "Simon… just tell me what's happened. _Please_."

He leant against the wall, pressed his hand into his face and groaned. "I… I really don't know how to say this. I… well, you see… shit, how the hell do I even begin to say this? Adryan… he well…" He punched the wall behind him. "Fuck! How is this so hard? I can give bad news all day!" He stalked away from the kitchen, slid open a drawer in the living room and found a letter hidden within. With shaking hands he pressed it into Chris' hands and gave her a sad look. "Read it. I… I can't say it myself."

Her hands trembled as she pulled the paper out. If it was bad news; it was going to be even worse if she had to read it from a letter.

And then, there it was.

The thing that Simon couldn't bring himself to tell her. The thing Adryan had been hiding from them for at least a month.

The news that her best friend was dying.

"Wha-" She couldn't figure out what to say. Everything she tried to say died on her tongue. What could she say? "How… when did he start this?"

"I don't know. There's letter dating back for a long time."

He disappeared into the house somewhere, leaving her alone with her thoughts. What the hell was Adryan planning? She could see it all there, written in front of her; _psychic-trauma induced tumour._

"_Moron!" _she screamed into the house. Her hand had balled into a fist. Her artificial arm managed to punch a hole into the nearby wall. She couldn't even begin to think about it while her attention was so enraptured with the paper before her.

She almost missed Simon appearing in front of her. "Here," he said, handing her a large amount of envelopes.

Her eyes widened at the amount of paper before her. She took them all, found the oldest one and tried to sort everything in her mind.

"This…" She couldn't quite believe what she was reading. "This is from just after her was in Sandstream. He, uh, got some memories from a friend of ours so that he could understand a few things. But really? Why-?"

And then it hit her.

Adryan did always want to be a hero, after all. She could remember back when she first met him, all that time ago. If he'd been wearing a cape and a mask, she wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest, given the dreams he told her he had.

She knew his reasons. He always explained it to her; his mother had pretty much cut him out of her life, yet Chris knew that Adryan had always been a bit of a mother's boy. He wanted to earn back her respect; being disowned hurt him more than he ever let on to anyone else.

She wanted to punch him in the face. Maybe before or after she'd kicked his stupid, bigoted mother out of a window.

"Fuck," she said. "I… just… fuck."

"Exactly." Simon took the letters back from her, turned them over in his hands and frowned. "What do we do? It doesn't look like he's got all that long left. Months, maybe at the most. I-we… what do we do? I know I've only been with him a few weeks. But I care for him, I really do. I can't stand around and pretend nothing's happened. And I can't just up and leave him because of this."

"I don't know," Chris said. "I just…"

It was then that the door clicked open. Simon's eyes widened and he made to take the last letter from Chris, almost as if to hide them all from Adryan. She scowled at him, shook her head and instead snatched them all back from him.

"Hey Simon," Adryan's voice drifted from the hallway. "Either we've got guests, or you've got a weird cross-dressing fetish you've yet to tell me about."

He bounced into the room with a wide smile that fell into a confused frown as soon as he saw Chris standing there, crossed between horror and anger. "Chris?" he asked. "How comes you're here?" He grinned again. "Are you planning a surprise party? 'Cos that would be totally awesome right now."

"Don't make jokes," Chris hissed. She shoved the opened letters into his chest and glared at him until he took them from her. "What. The fuck. Are these about?"

He face completely fell. Quickly he tried to look impassive as he opened a letter and glanced at what was inside.

"Oh this?" he said innocently. "I just… after everything with Oth, I thought that I could help out and guide things into a better direction, you know? It's not like there's much wrong. All I did was cut a few years out of my life. I'll still live to about forty."

Chris glared back at him. Even if she hadn't known him long enough to know when he was lying, the fact that his smile didn't reach his eyes gave the game away.

"Read the latest one," she growled. "The one where it says _terminal_. The one where it mentions that you've got maybe months, _at. The. Most."_

He backed away, dropped the letters onto the floor and shot Simon an angry look. "Why? What the hell gave you the right to go through my letters?"

"What the hell gave _you_ the right to do this and not tell me?"

"I have every right! It's not like we're married! We're not even living together and yet here you are, going through my stuff!"

Chris groaned and shook her head at the argument around her. "Enough!" she shouted. "While you _might_ be right that Simon shouldn't have gone through your mail, when the hell were you planning on telling us that you're _dying!_"

He looked away, turning bright red and unable to meet either of their gazes.

"Seriously Adryan," she said, punching his arm. "Why the hell wouldn't you tell me? I'm supposed to be your closest friend! What would make you do this!"

"I couldn't tell you because I knew you'd react like this!" He turned away and paced back and forth before her. "I did this. Someone needed to. Have you not seen the way he's wandering around so cluelessly about? He doesn't know what the hell he needs to do and is too bent up on what _might_ happen if he manages to do what needs to be done!"

She gripped her artificial arm, making sure it didn't punch anything randomly in her anger. "I can't do this," she said, full body shaking. "I can_not_ deal with you and your stupidity right now! You have friends that love you, a brilliant boyfriend that obviously thinks the world of you and you throw it all away! And for what? Some misguided attempt to be a hero?"

He tried to put a hand on her arm. "Chris, I-"

"Don't touch me!" she shrieked at him, batting his hand away. "I can't… I just can't deal with this right now." She shoved past him, stomped towards the door and put her shoes back on with enough force to break them. "And by the way," she snapped as she opened the door. "Jon proposed. I said that if he does so again in another few months, I'll say yes. I wanted you to be at my wedding. I wanted you to be the godfather to my children." She tore her gaze away from his wounded look, not wanting him to see the way she was crying so freely. "Make things up with your boyfriend, Adryan. Lord knows you should spend what little time you've got left together."

She left the house before he could say anything. She didn't want to face him then. She _couldn't_. It was selfish, she knew it, but all she could think about was what her life would be without him.

* * *

She couldn't face going home that night. There were too many memories there; photos of the journeys and happy times that she'd shared with Adryan – the times that were soon enough only ever going to remain just as memories.

She had her arcanine teleport her home, then hopped in her car and drove the several miles to another place. She knew that he was up early in the morning. She knew that she had to be working in her own place at some ridiculous hour of the morning.

At that moment though, she just didn't care.

She pulled into the parking lot, stared up at the building in front of her and played with the hem of her dress. She wasn't sure when she'd started crying again, or even if she'd ever stopped. The drive to Verdanturf seemed to pass without her even realising it and it felt like she was stood there, knocking on the door before she'd even managed to really think about what she was doing.

She waited for a few minutes before he finally answered. A sleepy, confused face, no shirt and the remains of dinner still on his pants.

"Chris?" Jonathon blinked sleepily, rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "What are you-" Once he noticed her face; her palpable sadness, instantly he changed. All colour drained from his face and he swept his arms around her. "Honey, what's wrong? You're okay, aren't you?"

She found that once she leant on him, she couldn't hold back the floodgates of loud, sobbing wails. "N-no," she managed to say. "No…"

He spun her around, kicked the door shut behind them and cupped her cheeks in his hands. "Chris, honey, tell me what's wrong. Are you in trouble? Did someone hurt you?"

She gripped one of his hands with hers and held onto it like a lifeline. "It's not that. I just… promise me that you'll never throw your life away in some vague attempt of a heroic sacrifice."

"Of course," he said instantly. He pressed his lips to her forehead and held her for a long moment. "What's the matter?"

It was then that she told him everything that was happening. Stood there, in his arms, it all seemed to just come apart. When she was finished, she was fairly certain she'd cried out at least a whole body's worth of tears, yet they still kept coming.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" she asked. Gone was the confident woman and instead, in her place was the frightened, scared upset girl that almost never saw sunlight.

"Of course. The bed's a bit of a mess though."

She laughed through the tears, but she knew how hollow it sounded. "It doesn't matter. I don't care. I just didn't want to be alone. Can you just… I just want you to hold me. I want to pretend that nothing's anywhere near as bad as what it actually is."

His bed was lumpy. There was a really annoying spring digging into her foot and a stain that she was pretty sure was there the last time she'd stayed over. But she didn't care. She just wanted to feel like the whole world wasn't bearing down on her for one night only.

She felt Jonathon lean his chin on her shoulder and felt his breath tickle her cheek. "You remember when we first met?" he asked.

She nodded. "How could I forget? When I said that I didn't want your number, you laid down in front of my car and told me to just run you over, because that would be less painful than never getting to know me."

He laughed. "And as I remember it, you got in the car and started in anyways."

"I figured that if you didn't move out of the way, you were probably suicidal anyhow."

"I just wanted to try anything to get the pretty girl's number. But it worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, after I started the car and you leapt into the air, screaming that I'd run you over." She grabbed his arm and pinched him. "Which I hadn't, by the way."

"I still got a pity date. Or, rather, one through blackmail, but it worked out nonetheless, didn't it?" He sighed into her ear and started playing with her hair. "Regardless of all of that, I'm just trying to say that even though I'm prone to doing stupid things to impress you, there's no need for you to worry about me ever doing that. I'm going to die of old age, stuck in my rocking chair and waiting for some young twenty-something year old nurse to come and give me a sponge bath."

"Then I'll make sure the prettiest male nurse in the entire home attends to your every need." She bit her lip and slid her fingers into his. "Do you think… can you take tomorrow off work? Tell them you're ill or something?"

He kissed the back of her head. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good." She shut her eyes and tried not to think about everything she'd said to Adryan. Everything she'd never get a chance to say. Her whole world was falling down around her and she'd found the only place she felt even the slightest bit safe. She didn't care if it made her seem needy or too attached. Just for once, she wanted to be the one who wasn't holding everyone together.

* * *

It wasn't even a few days later when she felt like life's chew toy.

"Chris?"

She snorted, woke herself up and found little bits of paper and plastic stuck to her forehead. _Attractive_, she thought as she wiped drool from her cheek. She yawned, hoped she wasn't too much of a state and swung around in her chair to find Amanda standing in the doorway, apparently finding the doorframe incredibly interesting.

"I'm awake," Chris said, though another yawn betrayed her. "What's up? Did I miss something important?"

"No. It's just, well, it's three o'clock and you said I could finish early today because well…"

"Oh that's right!" Chris exclaimed, clicking her fingers. "You've got a date, don't you?" She laughed at the way Amanda turned bright red and made a shooing gesture. "Yeah, yeah, go on, go have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" she shouted to her retreating figure. "Three o'clock already?" she whispered to herself. She'd slept half the day away again, crashing on her desk after too much research and the caffeine had burnt out.

She groaned, rolled her neck and tried to massage the awful crick there out of it. She knew that she'd spent far too much time lately, pouring herself into research. She was relying on all her employees to cover for her as she tried to achieve the impossible and find a cure for a brain tumour that no one else had ever managed to discover.

She ran her tongue along her teeth, wondered when the last time she brushed them was and more importantly; when she last ate. She could feel the prickly hairs growing back out on her legs, driving her crazy and making her want to leap into the shower and rip them all out.

But none of that mattered.

She pulled another sheet of paper from the pile, scanned through it as she booted up her laptop and tried to find something new she hadn't found. A messy pile of papers sat by her hand, covered in her familiar cursive and with all sorts of different concoctions for curing ailments.

One such 'cure' even involved drinking a stew made from alakazam bones and xatu feathers. Coupled with a hefty dose of grumping intestine and the tiniest traces of cyanide, of course. She seriously doubted that she could ever get Adryan to try that out.

At least she was talking to him again. He was going to die soon; he didn't have enough time for her to ignore him because of his stupidity. She'd hate him after he was gone, rather than regretting having not spoken until it was far too late.

There was a knock at her office door again. She spun around in her chair to find Jonathon stood there this time, worry all over his face.

"Hey," she said weakly.

"Hey." He frowned at her, took a look at her ever-growing pile of papers and scowled. "You haven't returned any of my calls."

She spun back around and started reading more nonsensical, medical-babble journals. "My phone died. I've been busy."

He lunged at her chair, spun it around and leaned in until their faces were almost touching. "You're going to make yourself ill if you keep doing this."

She made a face, kicked him in the chin and then returned to her hopes as he hopped away in pain. "I don't care. I need to do something."

"Isn't that exactly the kind of thought that got him in this situation in the first place?"

She leapt to her feet and threw her pen at him. "Don't you _dare_ try and be a smartass about this! My best friend is _dying_, okay? So excuse me if I'm working myself ragged trying to find out if there's some way of saving him! Because that's what friends do! If they're in trouble, you do your best to help them!"

He stood there, meeting her gaze with equal fury, yet he spoke as calmly as he could. "You won't be able to help him if you end up in hospital from not eating or drinking."

"I don't care," she muttered rebelliously, turning back to her work. She picked up another piece of paper, only for Jonathon to snatch it out of her hands. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she screamed.

"Helping." He held his hand out. "Give me the rest. You're not helping anyone doing all this."

"I need to do this. I _have_ to do this. I can't sit around and do nothing while he's dying!"

"And I can't sit around and do nothing whilst my girlfriend is killing herself trying to find an impossible cure!"

"Don't tell me it's impossible! I've found things that say they work!"

"Really?" He folded his arms. "Please tell me, just what are these miracle cures? The world of medicine could definitely do with being told just what these are."

"Fuck you!" she spat, throwing papers at him. "Don't stand there and do that! I've found things. Granted there's some bullshit like how I have to smack him upside the head with a bat made of seviper bones, then wait for him to fart the tumour out, but there's actual, _real_ data here." She found a highlighted page, picked it up and thrusted it into his hand. "Read that."

He did. It took him all of a minute to find the fatal flaw. "It says here that all the test subjects died within three weeks after the tests were completed."

"But the drugs reduced the tumour! Don't you see? There's actually something out there that works! I need to figure out just what works with humans!"

"And you're going to do that, when millions of medical professionals have failed?" He snorted and threw the papers on the floor. "Chris, I'm calling a stop to this. You _have_ to stop obsessing."

"What else am I supposed to do?"

He sighed and looked away. "Just… enjoy what time you have left."

She was on him like a madwoman, beating at his chest. "Don't say that! Don't you even _think_ you can come into _my_ house and tell me what to do with my life!"

"If you carry on like this, you'll end up in the ground next to him."

"_I don't care!"_ She spun away from him, collapsed onto her chair and burst into tears again. "He needs my help. I can't just give up on him."

Jonathon stepped towards her, crouched down before her and took her hand in his. "And I can't just give up on _you_. I can't let you throw your life away like this. You need to stop."

She snatched her hands away. "Don't tell me to stop. Not when there's so much at stake. Now you can either help me help Adryan, or you can just do us both a favour and leave now. At least then you won't have to stand around watching me waste away."

He pulled a face and tried to take her hand again. When she drew away, he threw his own hands up in defeat. "You know what? You're beyond help. When you actually want to try re-joining the real world and salvaging what little remains of our relationship, let me know. If not, then obviously I was an idiot to ever even think of proposing to someone like you."

She sat there in stunned silence for a long moment. Only when the front door slammed shut did she truly seem to realise just what had happened. She sniffed, wiped her nose and turned back to her laptop, intent on carrying on all the same.

Instead rage enraptured her so completely that she threw the machine across the room with a scream and punched the wall until all the rage faded, leaving her only with pain.

* * *

She truly didn't think it could get any worse than that.

But she'd always heard that 'bad news comes in threes'. She decided she had to pay more attention to that saying.

The third set of bad news was finding out that _another_ one of her friends had a brain tumour, all from psychic power. She'd screamed at him, ignored his pleas for her to understand it wasn't his fault; that something was strong enough to have done so without his permission. She couldn't process such a thing, so caught up was she in her grief.

She'd essentially thrown him out of her house with a screaming fit and then a general air of forfeit. She hadn't slept much since it had all started. Since finding out Adryan was dying. Since breaking up from what was almost definitely the best relationship she ever had. And now the latest burden.

She'd watched him leave, that soldier from the future, always so sure that he could hide things from others, when everything he was thinking was always etched across his face. She knew the moment he gave her that look that he wasn't going to visit Adryan. She knew that he was too afraid of what might happen, to upset to go and make amends after trying to cut all ties to save him.

What he didn't know though, was that he'd cut those ties far too late.

She realised that she must have fallen asleep there, on the floor, for when she opened her eyes again, it was night and peaceful. She pulled herself off the floor, felt her body protest and flopped down into the nearby sofa. She reached out onto the coffee table, picked up the phone and dialled a number from memory alone.

Two rings was all it took for it to be answered.

"Hey," Adryan said, weakly and tiredly.

She cut straight to the chase. "He's dying."

"Who is?" Adryan asked, suddenly wide awake.

"You know who. Our angry friend from the future." She frowned at her words, still half convinced it was all some sort of weird game to fool her. Except now, she couldn't help but _want_ it all to be a game being played on her. She'd happily take the egg to her face if it meant everything could go back to normal. "He says that something managed to do that to him without him knowing about it."

"What? But how? That's not possible, is it? I mean, I know he's not the smartest person there ever was, but surely you'd realise _that?_"

"I don't know, Adryan. You tell me. You're the only one out of the two of us who would really know."

There was silence on the other side. "I deserved that. Did he at least say anything to you about what might have caused it?"

She shrugged reflexively. "Something about him being in the Cluster. There was loads of stuff going on there by the sounds of it. He did say something about purple eyes, though."

"Purple eyes…"

She sat upright. "You know something about that?"

"I… I'm not sure. I'll have to check out what I wrote out when I saw… well, when I saw everything. I'll call you tomorrow?"

"Sure. Wait!" She swung around on the sofa and picked at a bit of fluff caught on her jeans. "Are you… how are you doing?"

He sighed. "I'm not going to lie. The headaches are getting worse. The painkillers aren't really working as well as they used to."

She felt like crying then and there, yet again. "Well… I guess we could always try slapping you round the head with a seviper-bone-bat?"

He laughed. "Any excuse with you to hit me, isn't it? I don't think that will work. But Chris… thanks. We both know you won't find a way to help, but… thanks for trying, at least. You know I love you, right?"

"Love you too," she said emotionlessly. Once he hung up, she started to cry one more, whispering to the empty phone, "Please don't die."

* * *

It was the day after she'd gotten her third bit of bad news. She found the mess of her research, sighed and sat down on the floor, spread it all around herself and wondered when she'd really started to give up. It all looked grey and hopeless to her now, rather than the vibrant shining hope it seemed to gleam with before.

The doorbell was what startled her from her stupor. She groused to herself, picked herself up from the floor and made her way downstairs to answer it.

She felt her heart stop when she found Jonathon stood on the other side.

Her mind was split for choice. One part of her wanted to throw her arm around him, tell him that she never meant any of it and beg him for them to get back together.

The other part of her wanted to punch him in the face and use him to feed a couple of sharpedo.

"I-" they said as one. They shared an awkward smile and a laugh as they tried to figure out just who was going to speak first.

"I was an idiot," Jonathon said quickly, almost as one word. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressured you so hard into giving up on trying to save your friend."

She shook her head. "No… I needed to be told that. I was getting obsessed. I ended up taking your advice anyway. I… I think that it's better to just enjoy what time we've got left. I spent the past few days with him and Simon; they're coming down for a couple more days the day after tomorrow. I won't ever accept it, but I can just make do with what's left."

"I'm glad to hear that." It felt like there was a stranger in her doorway. After sharing her bed and her heart with him, it was so strange to feel the heavy awkwardness there was, when all her heart was doing was screaming at her for stalling. "But… I think I found a way to help."

He reached into a bag he'd brought with him and brought out a little plastic prescription tube. Her eyes widened at the sight of it, then nearly fell out of her head as she read the label and connected the dots.

"This is… this is the same thing they used on those rattata."

"The one that killed them three weeks after reducing the tumours, yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at her feet. "I just… I wanted to help Chris. That might not make things better. It might just outright kill him. But I wanted to help you."

She felt the frost around her heart melt just a little. "But… how did you even get this?"

He shrugged. "I pulled a few strings, called in a few favours and took out a few new ones. Even if you still hate me Chris, I just… well I wanted you to know that I still love you."

Before he could turn to leave, she reacted. "You… just you," she said as she cupped his cheek and kissed him. "Don't do that again, okay?"

"Bring you the miracle cure you were hoping for?"

She laughed. "Make me think that I've lost one of the other best things in my life."

He smiled and kissed her once more. "So… does this mean that you'll reconsider my proposal?"

She laughed again and jabbed him softly in the side. "Still the same as last time. I want a diamond ring and for it to be at least a year into our relationship."

"Damn." He jerked his head back and pulled out his phone. "I guess I'll have to cancel the parading donphan and the room full of candyfloss."

Her face fell open in surprise. "You didn't-?"

He grinned. "I didn't." She gasped and punched him in the side again, making him laugh. "But seeing your face just then was totally worth it."

* * *

She realised that maybe, when her life started getting better again, she should have expected something to go wrong.

When she saw the number ringing her phone half way during the day, when she knew he was meant to be in work, she somehow knew that something bad had happened.

"S-Simon?" she said nervously into the phone.

She heard it then; the tears in his voice. "Chris… you should… Adryan's dead."

She dropped the phone. Her heart felt like it had stopped. Her soul felt like it had been ripped out. She somehow managed to pick the phone back up as calmly as she could and said, "I'll be right there."

She didn't bother making excuses to her employees. They all knew she was going to run out of there at some point during the day, one day.

She grabbed her arcanine's poké ball and had him teleport her down the road from Adryan's house. She returned him and ran down the hill to the house, only to find the coroner's van already outside and a few police cars too.

Then one of the policemen outside the house grabbed her before she could get any closer. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I'll have to ask you to stay outside."

She wrenched herself free. "Don't you think I'll do that! That's my best friend in there! You're not going to be able to keep me from seeing him!"

"Ma'am," the officer tried again. "I don't think-"

"_I don't care what you think!_ My friend's in there and he's dead from a brain tumour, so let me in right now or I'll throw you out of the way, police or not!"

"It's alright." Simon was in the doorway, puffy eyed and with the remains of tears on his face. Chris nodded and ran full pelt into the house, stopped at the eerie cold feeling and glanced around the house.

"They said it was natural causes," Simon was saying behind her. "That he just went in his sleep."

She ignored him. She wouldn't believe it until she saw him.

And then she did.

It was almost like a scene from a film. He was sat there on the sofa, a couple of his pokémon around him, keeping everyone else away. Her vision blurred and her legs moved unsteadily underneath of her. She didn't even make it to her second step when her legs gave way and she fell to the floor.

"N-no…" she sobbed into the floor. "Tell me I'm imagining this. This isn't real." She looked up at Simon and tried to laugh through the tears. "He's joking, isn't he? He's going to leap up, yell surprise and scare us all shitless in a moment, isn't he?"

Simon looked away. She sobbed again, gripped the carpet in her hand and pulled at it with all her might. "This can't be happening. I don't… I don't want this to happen!"

Someone outside the room cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, but we need to collect the body. Can you move the pokémon?"

Instantly Chris was on her feet, in front of the man and glaring him down. "Why the hell should we do anything _you_ want? He's my friend, his boyfriend! Who are you but some creepy guy who collects dead bodies for a living? Do us a favour and just do one before I throw you out of this house myself!"

"Chris," Simon whispered. He gripped her shoulders and tried to pull her away. "Chris, don't take it out on him. He's just doing his job. They need… they need to take Adryan's body away. It's their job."

"I don't care! How the hell can you let them do this? Do you really want them to take him away?"

"Of course I don't!" He looked away, back at Adryan's body and swallowed. "But… but I know they have a job to do. Adryan… Adryan's gone now. You need to convince his pokémon to let them take him. They trust you more than me."

She hiccupped and turned away, unable to see past her tears. It took her a good few minutes to sum up the courage to even look at his body again, yet alone be able to move his pokémon. She stared down at him, saw his face, so peaceful, so calm, almost like he was sleeping and another sob escaped her. She fell on him, wrapped her arms around his neck and wouldn't let go for the world, much less so for his flygon screaming and trying in vain to bring some life back to her trainer.

"I love you," she whispered to his body. "You were my best friend, closer to me than either of my sisters and like a brother I always wished for. I love you… and I want you to know… that I'll never be able to forgive you for letting something so stupid take your life."

She let him go and wiped her eyes as much as she could. She took her time convincing his pokémon to leave him. Unsurprisingly, it was his flygon who took the longest to convince. Once she realised she couldn't bring him back to life, she howled to the sky, tried to claw the coroner to pieces, then finally ran out of the bay windows in the back of the house and took off flying into the sky.

"She'll be back," Chris reassured the rest of his pokémon. "She just needs time to grieve."

She turned away and tried to hug herself. She glanced around and tried to find his gardevoir. She was honestly sure that the pokémon would have been there, not letting anyone or anything get anywhere near to Adryan. She found Ripper floating in a shadowy corner and approached him.

"_I bade the weeping widow to return to a place where she cannot cause harm. This death doth pain her greatly."_

Chris slashed an arm through the air. "Cut the Shakespeare crap. I know full well that you can talk normally. Now talk. He wasn't meant to die for another few weeks. Why's he dead now?"

The dusknoir's eye floated down and inwards. _"He asked of me one final favour. He did not wish to end his days weak, in pain and requiring aid for every task. He was not just my trainer… he was my friend. I carried out his final request; to let him die without pain, in peace."_

She didn't know whether to punch the pokémon or hug him. Instead she turned away, pressed her arm over her eyes and cried because she finally understood that there was nothing she could have ever done.

* * *

"This isn't right."

She dropped her phone into her purse and scowled. It had been a week since Adryan had died. A week that she'd spent ringing around letting people know. Out of all of them, there was only one that she never managed to get through to.

She told herself that he'd disappeared back to his horrible future and that was why he'd disappeared off the face of the earth.

She knew it wasn't true. She knew she was kidding herself.

But honestly, she felt that sometimes the fantasy was so much better than reality.

She felt an arm slide around her shoulders and hold her protectively. "It'll sort itself out," Jonathon reassured her. "You'll see. He's probably just in a cave somewhere, un-contactable."

"Or he's dead in a ditch somewhere," she snarled. She stopped in front of the building, turned away and clung to him. "I can't do this. I can't sit in there and watch his body go through with that. Can we leave?"

Jonathon nodded and squeezed her shoulder. "We can. But would you ever forgive yourself if you didn't go in there?"

She looked up at his face, to the building and then to the ground. "No. No I couldn't." She sighed, adjusted her top and tried to wipe away her smeared make up. "How do I look?"

"Better than most they get coming through here," he deadpanned. "You look _fine_, alright? You're entitled to cry, this is a funeral."

"I know… but." She shook her head. "You're right. Let's get this over with then."

She pulled herself up and made her way into the building. She could see all of Adryan's family there, stood before the coffin and openly weeping. There were other people there too, friends she knew and those she didn't, some of his work friends and even Flannery, sat there with a black veiled hat covering her fiery hair. Even his pokémon were there too, sat at the back, somehow perfectly behaved, even his grieving gardevoir.

Chris took a seat nearer to the edge, hoping to stick to the shadows and avoid talking to anyone. She didn't want to, if only because she knew she'd probably end up weeping like a mad woman yet again.

She watched the service start; the priest at the front give a little generic speech about life and death that he most likely gave for everyone else. His family said a few words about him; she was surprised when his mother stood up and gave a heartfelt eulogy that would have shown Adryan that really, she never meant anything she had ever said. But it was all too little, too late.

She watched as everything blurred into one, until they wheeled in a television screen. Her attention suddenly zoned back into the room just in time to catch the priest's final words, "… video speech, from Adryan himself."

She could scarcely believe her ears. When the screen switched on and she saw Adryan's face there, screwed up as he fiddled about with the camera, she heard a cross between a laugh and a sob escape her.

"These things never liked me," Adryan muttered to the camera. "Seriously, will I ever get one of these to work. There! Finally! Awesome. I do have some use after all. Well, uh." He cleared his throat. "Welcome to everybody and thank you for attending." His tone was serious, yet a second later he broke out in a laugh. "Okay, we all know that I'm nowhere near serious enough to carry that on for long. So is it weird seeing me there? I mean, me on the camera here, not me in the coffin there. Or box maybe. Or even stuffed into a vase. Just as long as you haven't left me to rot somewhere in the woods, I guess I should be happy, huh?

"So I guess, well, uh…" He rubbed a hand through his hair and leant back on his chair. "You know, these whole video-wills or whatever the hell this is happen to be really hard to do. I had a whole speech written out and everything, but I decided to scrap it. I mean, would it really be all that meaningful if I came out with lame jokes that sounded over-rehearsed. Although, granted, they would be my normal kind of jokes anyway."

Chris found herself chuckling with everyone else. She stared at his face on the screen so hard that if she let her mind wander, it was almost like he was there too. But however hard she stared, she knew that it would never change the truth.

"So anyhow, I guess there's a bit of explaining to do. I'm sure a lot of you might know I always dreamed of being a hero. What I probably never told any of you was that I used to dress up in my mum's tights and run around the garden, pretending to be 'Super-Awesome Man'!" He laughed into the camera. "I told Mum that one of her slugma had set those tights ablaze. Really, well I'd tried dying them bright blue by using paint. Needless to say it didn't end well. And well, let's face it; me running around in tights at a young age explains a few things, doesn't it?"

Another awkward, poignant laugh.

"Right, well the reason I'm mentioning this is because well… I've got a friend you see, that happened to need help. A lot of help, more than one person could really give him. He was scared, afraid of what would happen if everything went right. And well, I could tell that he wouldn't be able to do what needed to be done. The stakes were… too high, really. I got the idea that I could help and just from there it blossomed until I couldn't think of anything else I could do to help out somehow. You all know how I am; once I get an idea in my head, no one can stop me.

"Well, that's why I did the stupid thing that's landed me in this situation. And I just want you all to know that it's my fault alone, not anyone else's. So if you want to blame anyone, blame me. Hang my body up above the town gate and fill it full of arrows or whatnot. I found out a lot of things by doing what I did. More than I ever thought I'd be able to. I knew I wasn't going to last long afterwards, so I did what I could. You'll understand soon enough."

Chris felt her stomach spike with anxiety at that. She had no idea just what the hell Adryan would have done, though knowing him, she wouldn't have been surprised if there was fighter plane suddenly crash landed outside and left a message burnt into the grass. She smiled at the thought and found herself hanging on his every word as he left messages to the people he knew and a number more to his pokémon.

"So the final three now, huh?" He laughed awkwardly into the camera. "Well, this brings us to the funny part. Well, funny for me, for you guys more a competition of who gets the final, closing statement. Well then, to my friend, the insane little soldier brat who thinks he knows better than anyone else, let me tell you this; you won't get anywhere until you stop thinking about all the what ifs and instead focus on the now. I know that everything you're doing is for the greater good and yadda yadda, but you need to remember that driving yourself insane isn't going to help anyone. And besides, if you keep getting distracted, I'm going to haunt you forever. I have a little stick with bells attached to it – see?"

Sure enough, he had a little brown stick with a number of tiny golden bells hanging from it. He shook it at the camera, filling it with shrieking chimes.

"I'll ring this whenever you're alone somewhere, just to freak you out. We all know how paranoid you are. And more than that… I don't blame you, alright? At least remember that."

Chris sighed to herself. It would have been nice if he were even there to know such a thing. Instead there was still nothing from him. She was still worried about him, despite what Jonathon had tried to reassure her with.

"I'm sorry Chris, but you don't get the honour of having me finish with you. Which sounds wrong, but anyway. If I closed this with everything to you, I'd probably run out of battery on this damn thing. So what can I say to you that will make you not hate me? Because I know you, right now you hate me so much for doing this; for being a stupid idiot and throwing my life away. But… tough. I did what needed to be done. I know you like to protect your friends, hell, I remember back when we'd only been travelling for about a week. Some guy beat me in a pokémon battle and got a little carried away. Then in you came running with this _huge_ tree branch from somewhere and not only did you beat up him with it, but you damn well beat his machop unconscious too!"

He laughed at the camera, taken up by memories. "Anyway, what can I really say that will really do our friendship justice? You're my best friend and my big sister all in one; I love you more than anything and had things been different, maybe we'd be living in a big house somewhere with loads of little kiddies running around? Just, don't ever change, alright? You're awesome as you are; the woman who will beat people up for coming close to hurting her friends, yet will sit there and have aimless conversations about how noodles will one day rule the world. Jonathon's lucky to have you and when you guys do get married, I want you to take the urn with my ashes in and dress me up as one of your bridesmaids. Of course, that might be a little difficult if I get scattered into the sea or blown into the sky, but I'm sure you'll find a way. I might be dead, but I'll be haunting you for a long time to come, alright?"

The tears were out full force. She tried her best to stay silent and not curse him for making her forgive him just from one single, stupid speech alone. Seeing him like that, she knew it wasn't fair that he wasn't there anymore. They'd always promised that they'd grow old together, live in the same nursing home and chase the youngest, fittest men down the street on their rocket-powered rocking chairs.

She tried her best to remain silent throughout his final speech to Simon. Once it was down, even Adryan himself was tearing up on camera and she half expected him to shut it then and there.

"I guess that's everything, isn't it?" he said. "Wow… that's kinda… final, isn't it? So, I'd really like to close with an awesome statement that sums me up, but all I can think of now is how much I _really_ need to pee. I guess I'll just say that you're all awesome people and it's a shame I never got to spend more time with you all. And of course, it's not goodbye, but see you later. Unless, of course, you're going to hell. In that case, I'll be sat there on my cloud, strumming my harp and looking down on you, shaking my head in bemusement.

"So, until then, I guess."

That was it to the tape. She watched as the coffin that carried her friend was slowly taken away, past the little curtain and into the burning flames behind. She sat there for a while longer, waited as everyone else filtered out for the wake and stared at the picture of Adryan that stared back at them all.

She nodded for Jonathon to give her a moment alone. He kissed her forehead and let her know he'd be just outside. She smiled her thanks and made her way up to the picture, almost on autopilot. His pokémon were already there, grouped around what remained of their trainer and offering their own memorial. She didn't intrude. She just stood in front of his picture, kissed her fingertips and pressed them the picture's forehead.

"Don't get too lonely up there. We'll join you eventually. Then we'll have all eternity to chase men and let noodles take over the world."

* * *

_Author's note._

So, a few things to say here. First, obviously, no quotes this chapter. Partially to highlight the change in setting, partially because they belong to the narrator, rather than the rest of the cast. And plus, they don't fit into the mood here.

This was always going to happen. Right from the get-go, this was the end result for this character. But this was far too big for it to happen off screen. Although in real life, we're obviously not around for such things, I couldn't not include it here. Thus, we have the change of character. Who better to be the focus for this than one of the few people who knows him better than anyone?

And also, I think this is the most depressing thing I've ever written.


	55. Prelude of Ruin

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Prelude of Ruin**

* * *

_Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary _~ Steve Jobs

**-O-O-O-**

"_What Man was not meant to have, he took. And when he took too much, the earth itself took back."_

- Kai Ochre, founder of the Cult of Kyogre. _(2675)._

**-O-O-O-**

"So, you're finally here."

I had to pinch myself to let myself know I wasn't in some sort of nightmare. Even after that I did it again, then once more to be sure. Then I punched Gemini in the side and took a psychic blast to the head, all to make sure I wasn't dreaming it.

The way my brain screamed and my vision swam told me it definitely wasn't a dream.

I heard Gemini mutter something about only needing to have asked in my head. But I ignored it all as I focused on the ghost in front of me.

The same brown hair. The same dark green eyes and little purple piecing underneath her lip. Yet now a horrible burn scar ran down the right hand side of her face and disappeared below her jacket.

"B-but… you're dead," I blurted stupidly.

Gemini snorted by my side. _[Clearly she is not. Unless we are both somehow seeing ghosts?]_

I ignored the voice of the psychic giraffe and stared at the girl. She looked down at her spoink as it rolled around on the floor, oinking at something. All I knew about the pokémon were that they had to be constantly moving to keep their heart beating; hopping, which they were really known for just happened to make it beat so much they could rest for a little while and it would still continue frantically beating.

The psychic pig's lit up with a tiny bit of light. The girl winced and pressed a hand to the back of her head. I frowned and noted the information; she still wasn't used to telepathic conversations. Each one was still paining her. It would be useful to know.

The girl looked away from her pig, focused on me and drew her lips into a hard grin. "At least one of us is undamaged, by the looks of things."

I pointed to my head. "Brain tumour. Something powerful and psychic thought it would be fun to mess around with my brain."

She shrugged. "Can't say I'm that bothered by that. After this-" She pointed to her face, "-I'm a little less than worried about what happens to you."

I tried to feel sympathetic. I failed.

"I thought you were in on it with them. For all I know, you still are."

She turned away from me and looked at her spoink. It was rolling around in a puddle, coating itself in mud. It stayed on its back, waved its legs in the air like a little baby, complete with squeals, then rolled back over and started to bounce up and down in the mud.

"I never lied, you know?" She looked back up at me and slid her hands into the front of her hoodie. "Not completely, at least. You and I have a lot more in common that you'd think."

"What, are you from a desolate future where mankind is on the threat of extinction?"

She smirked. "Closer than you'd think. Did you always believe that I was there in Fallarbor just by mystical coincidence?"

"No. You pretty much admitted it the last time we spoke. Your boss meddled with psychic power and found out some things he needed. You were just part of the ploy. And now he's dead, while you somehow survived."

She traced two fingers down the scars on her face. "I didn't escape totally," she whispered. Almost suddenly she acted as if she'd never betrayed anything, like it was a weakness. "Besides, the one who meddled with the psychic? He's still alive."

"What."

"It's true." She reached up and started pulling thread out of the bottom of her hood's drawstrings. "Ben Tso was the leader of the gym. He was a lot of things, but he wasn't going to ever mess around with psychics. Being adapted to poisonous pokémon would likely just make his head explode if he did so. You never really listened to what I said before, when I almost slipped up and said his name. The one who fiddled around with psychic power – his name is Craig. Don't know his last name. All I know is that he disappeared quickly before you escaped. He must have known or something."

All the feelings I thought I'd managed to bury surfaced once more. I took a deep breath and tried to filter out the rage. Every time I'd let it in, something bad had always happened. I couldn't let something like that occur once more.

"So where is he then? I'll just search him out and find out just why he was helping those people."

She shrugged. "I don't know where he is. As for why he was helping them… originally, I know they started with good intentions. People like that guy you managed to escape with. They'd fallen through the cracks in the legal system, gotten off on technicalities, even though they were guilty. So the people in the gym, they'd kidnap them and imprison them, just like they deserved. I guess… I guess Ben got a little carried away with the power."

"That's the excuse? He got a little carried away with power? And I'm supposed to take your word that you're telling the truth?"

_[She is telling the truth.]_

"Shut up, Gemini." I glowered at her with enough force to make her burst into flames.

Instead she shrugged and sat down on the floor. _[I am merely trying to help.]_

"Psychics can be annoying, can't they?" the girl said. "I thought I could stay away from pokémon and escape everything, but well… I guess I ended up taking your advice. If the future needs changing, I need to help, don't I? Kind of hard without a pokémon though."

"So what am I supposed to do, congratulate you?" I laughed and turned away. "Well good for you. I'm done with this. I have things to do and pokémon to kill. Come on Gemini."

I threw a glance back at the girl as I walked away. She watched me leave, shrugged and began to play with her spoink. I frowned and looked away from her, this time using the signposts to lead myself out of town and back into the forests near Fortree.

_[She did not lie.]_

"I don't need to hear that, Gemini." I watched the road and pointedly took the route I knew would lead me towards Mount Pyre. I'd have to get a boat there, which meant I'd probably have to wait around for a while to get one.

_[You should stop trying to think about other things, you realise?]_ Gemini cantered to stop in front of me and pointedly sat down. _[Some things should not be taken as light coincidence. You found yourself strangely drawn there, to this woman. Something obviously is manipulating you.]_

I pulled my collar up and hid my head as much as I could with it. "I don't… thinking about stuff like that freaks me out. If something's able to do that… just, let's not have this discussion, alright?" I said as I moved to walk past her.

She shrugged. _[As you wish. The other did not like hearing this, either.]_

I stopped so suddenly I nearly fell over. "'Other'? What 'other'?"

_[The human my foal travelled alongside.]_ She stood back up and walked away.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," I said quickly as I chased after her. She stopped as I put a hand on her flank, just out of reach of her biting tail. "You can't just drop that bombshell and walk away from me."

_[I believe I just did.]_

"Gemini!" I grabbed some of her fur and pulled before she could walk away again. "You say we need to work together? Then why don't you ever tell me what you really know?"

_[Because a lot of what I know, you would not be able to cope with.]_ She sighed and flicked her ears. _[This matter will not be dropped, will it? Very well. The other traversed this path too. He was rife with indecision as whether or not to complete what he thought was the noble cause. He did not receive a tumour, to the best of my knowledge, but he did experience similar things to which those you are going through. Emotional swings and unnatural subconscious decisions.]_

I was practically bouncing up and down as I waited for her to continue. "And? What else?"

_[The Celebi killed him.]_

"Oh," I said, deflating. "There's got to be more that you can tell me than that? How'd he die?"

_[You don't want to know.]_

"But _why_ did he get killed?" I had to stop myself from strangling her to get my answers. "Why the hell would the celebi suddenly decide to kill him? Wasn't he trying to change the future, just like it wanted?"

_[I don't know the creature's motives.]_ Her tail snapped at me again. I backed off and watched it warily, feeling the increased aggression. _[I can only speculate. Unless we meet the creature and ask it, you shall just be left there to think about it all.]_

"And are we ever going to meet it?"

_[How should I know?]_

I felt my hands tighten into fists. "Oh, _come on!_ You're _psychic!_ You can see the damn future! Tell me whether or not you can see us ever meeting it."

Her face remained flat. Finally she snorted and turned her head away. _[The future is not one simple path. It is like a spider's web – one thing leads into a layer from which many choices are available, all the while getting smaller and smaller, until you reach the centre, where only one course of action can be taken. When you ask me to view the future, you ask me to see millions of possible futures all at once, then attempt to process it into something logical. Why do you think it takes so much strain on the brain for humans to do so?]_

I bit my lip and turned away. "Alright then. So it's hard. I've gathered that much. But is there _nothing_ you can tell me?"

_[If we ever meet it… the chances of surviving are almost nothing.]_

She walked past me as my fists uncurled and I slid them into my pockets. "I guess you were right," I said after her, to the empty air. "I really didn't like hearing that."

* * *

It was a short while later that the boat arrived. I decided to ride it all the way to Slateport – I didn't want to stop in the mountain of memorials. I wanted to sort a few things out first. If we very well going to meet the celebi and not walk away from it, I wanted to be able to go to my end without wishing I'd done something else differently. Too many past decisions were already resting on my shoulders.

I'd take the train from Slateport up to Lavaridge and try to settle things with Adryan. Then I'd go back to where I first turned up in this world, or as near as I could find. Maybe that would help me figure out just where the hell the time traveller was.

I leant against the railings on the top deck of the ship and watched the sea part before us. Gemini stood next to me in silence, betraying none of her thoughts. I sighed to myself, found a poké ball and let out Lacey to join us.

The shiftry instantly spread her arms and embraced the wind. I wanted to laugh to myself, imagining clichéd romantic music and for some big grass pokémon to come up behind her and hug , her eyes narrowed and she slapped me round the head.

"Ow! Hey, what was that for!"

She rolled her eyes pointedly, as if to say I knew very well. She leapt atop one of the railings, balancing deftly and embraced the wind, but something made her nearly fall back to the deck in surprise.

She collected herself quickly, glanced at Gemini, eyes wide and then grabbed my head, seemingly trying to see through the skin and into my brain.

Then again, she hit me, this time a lot harder.

"Hey!" I shouted at her. "This isn't some sort of abuse-your-trainer cruise! I wasn't even thinking about _anything_ then!"

She growled something I didn't understand. When she realised that, she pointed to Gemini, then to her head and mimed something growing out of her skull.

I didn't have to guess what she was talking about. "How the hell are you guys even figuring this out? Psychics, I can understand. But you and Scar? Do pokémon have some sort of sixth sense for this sort of thing?"

She shrugged then growled something at me again. Gemini sighed at my confusion and translated, _[She wishes to know what did this to you. She does not believe what I have already told her.]_

"Wish I knew," I said. "I never saw it. All I ever saw were these two glowing purple eyes."

Lacey's eyes widened then narrowed instantly. She hissed something to herself, slapped me round the head again and stalked off along the deck.

"You don't think she's going to kill something, do you?" I asked Gemini nervously. I couldn't afford to have her murdering random pokémon or people in a place we couldn't leave at any time.

Then I heard the shouts.

"Hey! Hey, you crazy-ass shiftry! Put her down!"

I felt cold inside all of a sudden. I raced towards the source of the noise to find a large crowd gathering, in the middle of which was Lacey.

She glared at them all, swung a leafy hand and created a gust of wind that sent most of them flying. She caught sight of me and I saw just what she was holding in her other hand.

The espeon shrieked at her, trying in vain to claw or to bite her as she held it up by its tail. Lacey sneered at it, yanked it up into the air and stalked towards me. She dropped the mewling creature in a heap by my feet and pointed to her eyes, then to those on the pokémon.

The espeon hissed again, eyes shining purple.

I looked at it, felt a pang of fear at the sight, but then logic kicked in. "That's not what did it," I told her. She seemed to raise an eyebrow at me. I shook my head and pointed to the pokémon that will still hissing, ears pinned back and eyes still shining purple. "It's eyes are too small. And besides, the ones that I saw? They were just above my own head. No way something like that could be that tall."

Lacey took another glance at the pokémon and shrugged. The espeon hissed and tried to slice at her with its claws. Lacey just stepped over it and kicked it, knocking it into the air and sending it flying into its shouting trainer.

I buried my face in a hand and turned away from the irate crowd. "This is why we can't ever go anywhere public."

Apparently that wasn't enough to sate them. I heard the sound of a pokémon being returned just before, "Hey, you with the insane shiftry!"

I rolled my eyes and turned back round to face him. He was a little taller than me, but younger. More than that, he seemed confident with a crowd of people watching, seemingly all on his side.

"Can't you control that cra-azy thing?" His voice broke as he screamed at me, making me want to laugh at him more than fear him.

I sighed, shrugged lazily and looked at Lacey. "She does what she wants, within reason. If anything, shouldn't you be looking at yourself? Your espeon didn't even know how to defend itself against a dark pokémon."

His face burnt bright red. The crowd were murmuring between themselves, most of them against me, a few pointing out that I was right.

I turned away, only for him to squeakily shout, "I dema-and a battle!"

"Whatever," I grunted. I didn't have time for it and didn't care. My best guess was that there was about another twenty minutes until the boat pulled up at Mount Pyre. If I was lucky, he'd be leaving there.

"You can't walk away from a battle challenge!" he shouted after me. Honestly, I was more tempted to let Lacey just fling him overboard. She caught my eye and silently asked if she should do just that. I quickly shook my head.

"Fine, whatever," I sighed. I knew it could go one of two ways; I'd win, or I'd lose. I couldn't tell either way, he was younger than me, but he could probably be stronger. I'd only been training for the better part of eight or nine months, after all. Cold indifference mixed with a little bit of arrogance seemed to be enough to make people think I was a lot stronger than I was, coupled with my age.

"How many badges do you have?" he asked, hand hovering over the poké balls on his belt.

I felt the façade crack a little and the tips of my ears heat up. Nowhere near as many as my demeanour would make anyone think. "Three," I admitted.

He laughed, as did a few people in the crowd. The tips of my ears and my cheeks were really burning, but I tried my best to stuff it all away. I was stronger than that, I'd just merely given up on getting badges for a better cause.

"No wonder why you can't control that beast," he said, quiet enough so that I only just heard him. "This'll be easy then." He threw out his poké ball and out popped a heracross. It growled, flexed its arms and wings erupted from its back, taking it a couple of feet into the air.

I managed to suppress a wince. Not good. I was about to call Lacey back when she stood in front of me, smirked at the heracross and growled something at it. The bug screeched and dove at her recklessly. She smirked, ducked out of its way and grabbed it as it soared past her. She pinned it down under one foot, grabbed it by the horn and one of its wings, spun around on the spot and threw it spinning overboard.

Watching it alone was enough to make me feel dizzy. The bug finally righted itself before it splashed into the sea, growled something and tried to zoom in for another attack. Lacey just rolled her eyes, drew her arms back and flung them forwards, creating a strong enough breeze that a few people fell over and the pokémon tumbled uselessly through the air.

The trainer frowned as he recalled it, paler than before. "Lucky start," he growled. He threw down another pokémon, this time a houndroom. It sat on its haunches, threw back its head and howled hauntingly enough to make a shiver go down my spine.

I called Lacey back and searched for another pokémon. I tossed out Erra and watched her take to the sky, clicking and hissing as she circled the pokémon.

The trainer seemed to smirk. He said something about typing and rookie mistakes before he ordered his houndoom to barbeque Erra. Instead, she latched onto its muzzle and shocked it before it could breathe anything. It whined in pain, blew out a tiny ember through its nose and tried to bat Erra from its face. She hissed, bit it on the nose, tore out a little chunk of flesh and shocked it again. The thing howled, bayed and finally just fell to the floor, twitching occasionally.

As soon as the trainer recalled the pokémon, Erra took off into the sky and latched onto Lacey's head. The shiftry hissed, tried to bat at her but couldn't quite reach. Erra growled something like a laugh and scuttled through Lacey's hair, occasionally discharging little sparks of electricity. I looked at them both, sighed and turned back to the other trainer. "Happy now?"

He frowned and pulled three poké balls into his hand at once. "How the hell?" he asked. I was unsure of whether he was talking to me or himself more.

I went to get another poké ball when someone in the crowd shouted, "Are you really that stupid?"

I looked round to hit the person that threw out the insult. Everyone else was looking at her, yet she was looking at the trainer I was fighting. "Can you honestly control three pokémon at once?"

He flushed, let his hands drop by his side and shook his head. Then he looked back up and pointed at me. "B-but, he only has _three_ badges! I've got _eight! _His pokémon shouldn't be that strong!"

I smirked, recalled Lacey and Erra and patted Gemini on the side. No point completely ruining his day, after all. "I used to be a gym trainer," I told him. "And badges aren't the only measure of strength."

He frowned, muttered something to himself and stuffed his poké balls back into a pocket. He stormed up to me, pressed some money into my chest and took off before I'd even fully taken it from him. The crowd dispersed slowly after that, leaving just Gemini and I there.

And strangely enough, the girl who'd spoken out against the other trainer.

She looked at me, smiled and walked towards the rails. "Nice battle, by the way," she shouted back.

I shrugged and walked up to stand next to her. "Thanks… I guess." I looked at her and frowned. Something about her seemed familiar. She had brown hair, but it was mostly covered by a big baseball cap. A pair of lightly shaded glasses covered her eyes and she stood just a few inches shorter than me. "Have I… have I seen you before somewhere?"

She shrugged and smiled out to the ocean. "Maybe. Your pokémon are strong. You really used to work as a gym trainer?"

"For a little while, yeah. What about you?"

She smiled and waved a hand in a circle. "I'm still coming into my stride."

Gemini walked up to me, sat down next to me and stared the girl in the face. She turned away quickly, but Gemini followed her, glaring into her eyes all the while. I tried to pull her away, yet still the pokémon remained focused on the girl.

Finally Gemini looked away from her and to me. _[She wields an interesting trick.]_

"Huh?" I said stupidly.

The girl glanced at me nervously as Gemini flicked an ear. _[A trick. Look for something familiar. Then you shall understand.]_

I blinked, confused. I looked over the girl again and knew that she felt familiar somehow. But nothing came to mind.

"What's wrong?" the girl asked, reaching up to spin her necklace between her fingers.

The flash of light caught my eyes and I saw the necklace – a little purple pendant of a spoink's face. I frowned, wondered just where I'd seen something like that before, then it all clicked into place.

The girl before me seemed to flicker, the real image beneath it. I saw a familiar hat, burn scars and a pokémon sat atop her shoulders. It flicked again and I rubbed my eyes, wondering if what I saw was real.

When I opened them again, I couldn't _not _see the little pendant. The girl before me kept flickering, like two people were there at once, yet at the same time neither was actually there.

"What the hell is this?"

She frowned, sighed and spun the little pendant. "Guess you're smarter than I thought." The vision of her seemed to evaporate, leaving behind the familiar girl in its wake. The spoink on her shoulders oinked, scrambled for purchase on her head and then bounced off, almost like she were a springboard above a pool. It squealed on the floor, rolled over and started climbing up her jeans to do it all again.

"B-but… what? How?" I stuttered.

She smiled and leant back against the railing. "A little psychic trick. Gardevoir and their families can do it, right? That's how they appear so human. I figured if they can do that, why can't most psychics? It took a little while training, but it looks like we got it down completely."

I was lost for words. I wanted to ask her just how the hell she managed to do that and whether or not she could teach me. Instead all I came out with was, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"A rain dance," she deadpanned. "I'm riding on a boat. Is that a crime now?"

"It is if you're stalking me."

She rolled her eyes. "And just why would I be doing that?"

I shrugged, leant on the railing with my elbows and stared out to see. "I don't know. Maybe something to do with revenge? You being civil even now is more than a little bit unnerving."

She smirked. "Really? Good to know." She ran a hand across her scars and sighed. "Revenge… it's a bit far from my mind, to be honest. Before, I was always freaking out because of who I was with. It wasn't who I am and I wasn't happy with what I'm doing. I've gotten out of that now and if I have to have these scars to be free, well then, I guess I can accept that."

Then she kicked me hard in the shin.

"Of course, I'm still pissed about it, so don't think you've gotten away with it."

I cursed and rubbed my injured leg, concerned about what the hell she was hiding in her shoes to kick so hard. "So why the hell are you even here then?" I asked her.

She clasped her hands together and leant them on her stomach. "Just, some things really. You know I really was planning to help you escape that day. When I came into your cell, then you knocked me out and left me for dead."

I shrugged. I couldn't honestly bring myself to care. I thought she was trying to trick me and I acted on instinct. Better her than me, anyhow.

"I didn't know. I didn't trust you. What was I meant to do? Go along with you to what I thought was a trap?"

She chuckled to herself. "When you put it like that; yeah, you've got a point. I acted a bit quickly, but I thought it was for the best." She sighed. "What's done is done. I don't care anymore. But more than that, there's something else as well. I wasn't completely lying when I first met you. There were a few details that were… embellished, but the main one was always true.

"I got brought here by a celebi too."

I nearly choked on my own spit. "You've got to be kidding me."

She smirked. "If only it were a joke. Nope, one of those little time imps brought me here and now."

"I-impossible," I spluttered. "Why, why the hell would they choose _you_?"

"Why would they choose _you_?" she shot back.

I pushed off the railing and paced back and forth, round Gemini, who still sat there quietly. "This is mad. It's just… _insane._ What future are you from? I mean, how far ahead?"

She turned away. "It doesn't matter now. I'm here, aren't I?"

There were too many questions running around in my head. Too little time to wait around and asked them all. "So what were you trying to do then?"

She was quiet for a long moment, almost like she hadn't heard me. Then she turned back to me, met my eyes and looked down at the floor. "Ever heard of the GS Ball?"

I could honestly say I hadn't. "No. What is that? Some kind of uber, catch all pokémon poké ball?"

"Something like that." She pulled the sleeves of her hoodie over her hands and played with the ends, fraying them. "It's passed a few hands. Last person that was meant to have it was some professor in the Orange Islands. But the people that were meant to be delivering it were all killed. Everything on them was taken and they were left stripped in the Orange tropics.

"Someone had the GS Ball and control over what was locked away inside."

I took a step closer. "But what was inside then? Something powerful, otherwise they wouldn't have killed to get at it."

"It was powerful alright." She smiled a little, then quickly it was gone. "Big, powerful and something that was captured for what I'm guessing was a really, _really _good reason."

"So then where's this whole story going? Did you find it or something? Pass it onto someone and let them open it?"

She opened a thread on her sleeve and pulled at it. "Something like that. I take it you know about everything that happened with the poké balls a while back?"

I nodded. "They all stopped working, didn't they? Then just as suddenly they started working again. What caused that?"

"Me."

I stared at her a moment, taken aback. "You?" I asked, gobsmacked. "But that's… how did _you_, on your own, manage to do that?"

"I wasn't on my own," she said with a shrug. "I knew about where I needed to go, what needed to be done. When I got brought here, I got told everything I needed to know."

That was new to me. "You… you got told? By who?"

She gave me a flat look. "By the celebi that brought me here, who else?"

And just like that, I was lost again. "But, what? I never got that."

Her eyes widened. "Really? That's new. I would have thought you'd be told what you needed to do. What's the point in bringing you here if you didn't know the game plan they had planned for you?"

I looked to Gemini for help. Instead I felt her curiosity needle into my brain, almost as if she were searching for an answer I didn't quite know myself.

"I… but wait. I'm just confused now. When I got here, I passed out pretty much instantly afterwards. Then I woke up in this house and this woman said that she'd been conversing with the thing and my entire goal was to help save the world."

The girl laughed. "Save the world? Gee, I feel really unimportant now. All I had to do was break into a big secure building and bypass the security measures of a number of systems to make all the poké ball systems fail. But saving the entire world? Good luck there."

"I'm still confused," I said. "How comes you got everything explained to you, while I just got a housewife tell me I need to save the world?"

"Can't say I know," she said. "Maybe there's a reason behind all that. Like it's one of those things that can't be just outright explained."

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "So what was in this poké ball then? The one that you had to go to such great lengths to release?"

She turned away again. "Something powerful. That's why it took taking down the entire poké ball network to try and let it out. I know that someone else had it and took that opportunity to let it out."

"So all of that to let it out." I folded my arms, getting impatient. "What was in it then?"

"The Celebi."

"Celebi?" My mouth nearly fell open in shock. "As in the thing that brought us both here?"

She shook her head. "Not that one. _The_ Celebi. As in, the original one. The first one that was created. It got sealed away in that poké ball and for some odd reason."

"So what's the point of having that celebi out then? Surely there's got to be a big plan behind it?"

"I don't know. I completed what I needed to do." She flicked a little necklace with what seemed to be just a blank face hanging from it. Her spoink bounced up next to her, bouncing up and down and grabbing at her belt, trying to pull itself back up. "Now it's just a matter of finding the one that brought me here in the first place."

I was intrigued. If she had an idea, I wanted to be part of it. "How're you planning on doing that then? You've got a good idea for it, I take it?"

She smirked ominously. "Something like that."

Her spoink leapt up, grabbed her hand and then in a flash of light they both vanished. I leapt around, more afraid than nervous. Nothing good was going to come of her sudden vanishing act.

_[Down!]_ Gemini screamed into my brain.

There was noise like air being fired out of a blow dart. Gemini yelped, staggered on her feet and collapsed onto the floor. I caught sight of a big dart sticking out of the back of her neck and went to take it out.

Then something like an insect bite slapped me in the back of my neck. I grabbed at it, found a dart sticking out of there too and felt panic set in before black swam in the edges of my vision.

Just before I passed out, I heard someone land on the deck beside me and say, "Looks like we got the bastard that killed Aaron."

* * *

Waking up was difficult. It was like fighting against my entire body, not just my eyelids and my limbs. When I finally stirred, my head swam and bounced with every sound, like a hangover but without the fun of drinking to obtain it.

I groaned and tried to move my arms, only to find they were tied behind my back to a chair. At least my legs were still free.

I opened my eyes and found myself in what seemed to be an interrogation room. I was sat behind a desk, with two chairs on the other side and a big mirror hanging from the wall.

It seemed the police had finally caught up with me.

"I really get knocked out far too often," I grunted as I tried to move my hands. Nothing. Whoever had handcuffed me made sure that I wasn't going to be escaping anytime soon. I wasn't sure whether I was pleased with that or not. I'd spent far too much time escaping from places and leaving a hefty body count. Maybe it was best that I couldn't escape from this place.

I sighed to myself and stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing there but little spots. I was bored, tied to a chair and could tell just by the lack of weight alone that my stuff had been taken.

I wondered where my pokémon were. Probably hidden away somewhere, left in a draw and waiting to be given to better homes or something. If so, that meant they'd likely do away with any of them that might be too threatening for other people to use.

So really, I had to escape, if only to make sure Lacey could live on. Most likely Scar too, as well as Loki. But after everything, I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I'd been brought to the past and left for dead by the celebi, while that girl had everything explained to her and her whole goal given to her on a plate.

I told myself it was because I was only the second choice. As if it would have time to explain everything to me then.

A little part of me asked the question, _are you sure?_

It was the first niggle of doubt I'd had about the whole thing. From what I'd learnt about the entire species, celebi were ones who had to make little changes in the timeline, to make sure it remained balanced. Everything was always planned out, wasn't it?

I started to wonder if I was actually the second chance after all. What if the celebi had planned for Alex to die that day? What if it knew I'd follow him and it was all a ruse to get me close enough to kidnap me?

_Yeah right,_ I told myself. Alex trained as a medic – he wanted to help people. I was trained to kill them. He would be the one that wanted to help save the world, I just did it because I thought it was my duty, my purpose as a tool.

I glanced at the mirror and saw no movement behind it. Nor could I outside the door. I figured they weren't coming for me anytime soon. I had no idea how I was so calm. Maybe it was more resignation. I was resigned to the fact that somehow, the celebi had screwed up everything for me. Maybe I was just a distraction? Something to draw all of the enemy's attention while the real hope snuck in and sabotaged everything? Or saved everything. Whatever the case was, I was starting to actually take my time to think about everything.

I wondered what had caused the girl to set me up like that. She'd said something about finding the celebi. How would revealing me to the police help that?

I couldn't figure it out.

Instead, with nothing else to do, I stared up at the ceiling and started to count the little black spots.

I'd gotten to three hundred and sixteen when the door opened and two people walked through.

They were… ordinary. Faces you'd see in a crowd and then forget instantly. One was tall, hairline receding and with thin, angry black eyebrows. His nose was a little crooked and a pair of circled glasses sat atop his nose, making his brown eyes appear huge. The other was shorter, wider and with grey hair and eyebrows, a fat wide nose and a mouth like he was chewing on a beedrill.

Short sat down whilst tall stood up and leant against the wall by the door. They looked at me, glowered for a split second and hid it all behind a mask of stoicism.

"We have your pokémon," tall told me. "They'll be held until further notice. What happens to them is up to you. They'll either be released into the wild, given to trainers to care for them or put down."

I'd already considered all of that. Besides, I had a feeling that they'd realise just what was going on and manage to escape. Gemini would probably teleport out by herself. Alistair would likely try and bring the others with him. Loki would hide in the shadows and just terrorise everyone until he got bored, while Erra might freak and flee through panic. Only Scar and Lacey would try and fight their way out, but I honestly had no idea how well either would do.

I said nothing. Cockiness didn't seem like it would help me there. Neither did fear. I'd done what they were accusing me of, but I didn't want to let them know that.

Short frowned and placed a folder on the table between us. He slid it towards me and said, "Take a look inside."

I raised an eyebrow. "My hands are tied. I can't open it."

He frowned again and shot a look at tall. Tall rolled his eyes, walked over to me and unlocked the handcuffs. I drew my hands in, rubbed my wrists and tried to figure a quick way out. They could both take me, easily. I knew that. And fighting my way out was out of the question. I'd be dead within a minute. I just had to play along until there was an opportunity for escape.

I flicked open the folder and found my handiwork staring up at me in photograph form. Pictures of Aaron's body, left to rot in the Petalburg Woods and found by scavengers before someone had come across him. If I'd been lucky, it would have taken maybe another week before his body had been stripped clean.

I bit the inside of my cheek and tried my best to look confused. "I thought the news said that his death was accidental though?"

Tall slapped a hand down on the table. "That's bull and we all know it. An experienced trainer like him? An _Elite?_ He wouldn't have been stupid enough to ingest something that's known to cause swellings of the respiratory tract."

I played dumb. "The re-what now?"

Short frowned again. It was like his favourite expression. "His nose, mouth and tongue, in addition to his lungs and airways. Toxicology says that he ingested it. What would cause that?"

I shrugged. "Eating it?"

"It was in the form of liquid," Tall said. "And his body was conveniently missing all his money. More than that, he'd been moved. We found footprints around his body – human and those of a pokémon. A nuzleaf. According to our reports, you used to have a nuzleaf."

"She's a shiftry now," I said.

"And where did you catch this pokémon?" asked Tall.

I couldn't lie about that. All the pokémon centres and gyms had records enough to know when I'd caught her. Even my pokédex would likely have the date it happened. "In the Petalburg woods."

"So you're saying that you caught your shiftry in the Petalburg Woods, where Aaron was found murdered, with footprints belong to a nuzleaf by his body?" Tall's face was contorted in disbelief. "We know that your shiftry was a nuzleaf when you caught her. What are the chances that your shoes will match the imprints we took from the scene?"

Pretty impossible, considering I'm wearing a different pair and those went boom in that Fallarbor gym.

"I'd be surprised if they did," I said. "Why would I kill him? I've got no motive for that. And I don't know enough about plants to know what could kill someone. And anyway, aren't you both meant to tell me just who you are before you start questioning me?"

Short smiled. "Normally, yes. But you see, we don't exist. We work outside of the law to enforce it, to do what needs doing. If you're innocent, you won't remember this conversation. If you're guilty, then you won't be alive to tell anyone else."

Well, those choices sucked.

"Tell us about Celebi," Tall said.

I looked at him, blinked and tried to stay innocent a bit longer. "That pokémon that's meant to travel through time?"

"That one," he said, face blank.

"I could only tell you what I've read."

"Really?" It was Short who spoke. "Then kindly tell us why someone reported in that you were in contact with it. Tell us why we keep coming back to you when we investigate people that seem to have some connection to this creature. Is it a cult? Maybe even a religion that you're a part of?"

That well and truly lost me. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Tall produced a folder from inside a pocket. He laid it down on the desk before me, opened it and showed me a list of names. "These are people we know to have been in contact with it. Do you know what they've all got in common?"

I shrugged. "They're all on this list."

"They're all dead."

Well, that was something. I looked closer at the list and tried to see anyone I would know. There was a long list of names, but sure enough, right near the bottom I saw one that was familiar.

Jennifer Hale.

That was unexpected.

"How can you be sure these people ever had contact with one of those pokémon?" I asked.

"It's our job," Short said. "And we need to know about you and your connection to these people. We inspected your phone records. We know you had contact with Jennifer Hale. Her daughter, Erica as well. Do you know where Erica is?"

"Erica's missing?" I had no idea about that. "But, how? I know she's a trainer, at least I mean, I think she is. What do you mean she's missing?"

"Missing, as in cannot be found," Tall deadpanned. "She's disappeared off the face of the earth, shortly after we brought in a few people that managed to link her to everything. Care to offer an explanation of why this is?"

I shrugged. Nothing I could say. I was happy she'd gotten away though, if she'd gotten away.

Short flipped through the folder and showed me a medical report. "This is from Jennifer Hale's autopsy report. The coroner found that it was a psychic induced tumour that killed her. Do you know anything about this?"

I nodded slowly. "She mentioned to me a while ago about it. She didn't say what caused it or why she'd done it, just that she had it and she was dying."

Tall pulled out a seat, sat down and leant back, linking his fingers and leaning them on his stomach. "What would you say if we told you a Celebi had caused that?"

"What."

That smiled and leant forwards. "Tests results showed that only something as strong as a Celebi – a legendary pokémon – had caused that."

My hands were shaking as I pulled the paper towards me and tried to read it. "H-how… how would you even know that? Wouldn't you need something to compare it to or something?"

"That brings us to our next point," Short said, leaning forward. "We had in our custody a special object. A poké ball. The top half was made of gold, the bottom silver."

Gold and silver. GS. I tried to keep my face emotionless.

"Two weeks ago it was stolen from our highest security vaults. No pokémon can teleport in, nothing can even get within a hundred feet of it without fifteen different systems being alerted. Yet somehow it disappeared."

The shock of it all made me laugh. The time imp had everything planned out well, it seemed. "And you think I did that? I got knocked out by your team without even having a chance to defend myself. You'd think if I managed to do anything of what you're accusing me of, I'd have at least managed to realise someone was trying to attack me."

They both frowned at once. I smiled inwardly, hoping they'd overestimate me, or at least, the person they thought they were after.

Then I realised a key thing I'd overlooked. "So you can tell what pokémon caused a tumour just by analysing it?"

Short's face turned into a stone wall, but Tall frowned a little bit more. "Yes. Why?"

I bit my lip. I didn't want to risk anything, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. "Something gave me one," I told them. "I don't know how. All I remember is being knocked out after seeing a pair of purple eyes, then when I woke up, my pokémon told me I had one growing on my brain."

"If this is true," Tall said, leaning forwards. "Then why haven't you sought medical help?"

"Who'd believe me?" I grunted. "It's commonly accepted that people only get them when they consciously interfere, isn't it? Me getting one forced on me is something that they'd never believe. I didn't want to be just turned away because someone didn't believe me."

Short shared a look with Tall. They got up and left the room, returning almost seconds later with a hypno. It shuffled in after them, bags under its eyes and slowly spinning a little pendant before its own face. They pointed to me and the hypno shuffled forwards to stare straight into my eyes.

It brought the little pendant up and spun it round in front of me. I knew tales about them and their hypnotic powers. I wanted to look away, or better yet, to punch it in the face and flee. But I couldn't, just because that would probably lead me to being shot by these two policemen or whatever they were.

The hypno whispered something and grabbed a side of my head with its hand. Its eyes shone blue as the pendant swung before my eyes, distracting me from whatever it was doing.

Even once it turned away, I could still see the charm swinging in front of me, though I knew it to be clutched in the hypno's hand. It said something to the two people. Their faces fell open in shock and as one they glanced at me. Tall said something to the hypno and the spinning charm in my eyes seemed to wobble until the strongest urge to sleep I'd felt in a long while overtook me.

* * *

When I woke back up, I was moving.

Or more, I was being moved.

I was in a car. My hands were handcuffed in front of me and another one linked my wrist to the car door. I glanced around, but everything I saw was black. It took me a good moment to realise I'd been blindfolded.

"Sit still." It was Tall. He sounded like he was next to me, but I couldn't be sure. He sighed and I felt someone pull my blindfold, making sure it was over my eyes. "We'll take your blindfold off when we get there."

"Get where?" I asked. No one answered me. "Get _where_? What happened? Why the hell did you knock me out and how long was I even out for?"

"Three days." It was a new voice.

Three days? That was just… unreal. I couldn't process it. My mind felt sluggish, almost like everything had been rearranged and glued down.

"That long?" I asked the darkness. "Why?"

"We had to check." Short spoke that time. It was strange to know I was in the car with three people. I tried to figure out where they were by the sounds of their voices. Tall was beside me. Short was in front. That meant the third voice had to be driving. "You weren't lying after all."

I figured they had to be talking about my unwanted brain growth. It throbbed even then, with every beat of my heat. "So what caused it then?"

Silence.

"What caused it? Couldn't you figure it out?"

There was more silence. Finally Short spoke. "Something that shouldn't even exist. Something we didn't even think existed."

I didn't know what to say to that. Was I meant to be happy that some new pokémon had warped my brain?

I sighed and tried to fidget in my seat. "So where are my pokémon then?"

"We've got them with us," Tall said.

That was something at least. I tried to feel the way the car moved in the hope that I'd be able to figure out just where I was. No such luck. My brain was slowed enough that I couldn't figure out the time between each turn.

It felt like my brain had only just come back to normal when the car stopped. I felt the handcuff linking me to the car door released, then heard everyone leave the car. Someone opened my door and pulled me out by my collar.

Panic was starting to settle in a little bit then.

I stumbled on the floor and was kept up by the hand on my collar. It dug into my neck sharply, cut off all my air and choked me as they pulled me back up and dragged me ahead by the handcuffs still binding me.

Whatever we were walking on, it was gravel. That was all I could guess. It was less than a minute of walking until I heard something creak open, like an old iron gate. Another minute and then the sound of an old door being slammed open.

I could smell the disturbed dust fly everywhere. It got into my nose and made me sneeze before I could stop myself. I felt whoever was leading me flinch away. I guessed I'd sneezed on them. Served them right for leading me into the place like a lamb for the slaughter.

My insides twisted at the analogy. What if I was being led to my execution? A great big knot took hold of my insides and tried to convince me to panic. It took every ounce of willpower I had to not do so.

I heard everyone else around me stop. A hand grabbed mine and unlocked the handcuffs. I drew away from them and pulled the blindfold down as quickly as I could.

The light blinded me for a second. Once I opened my eyes again and got used to it, I saw Tall and Short both standing a little bit away from me. Almost in front of me was another man, younger than both of them but still rather old, with black hair and eyebrows and a stern face.

Once I took that in, I saw just where I was. It was a massive building, almost like a warehouse. Big windows stretched over the walls and I could see through to the floors above. The entire place was abandoned and left for dust – weeds were growing in the floor and the walls both.

The knot in my stomach seemed to double in size and weight.

The new one held up a bandolier full of poké balls. I recognised it instantly and snatched it off him. He pulled a face and let me attach it as quickly as I could. I slid a poké ball from there and kept it in my hand, ready to release it as soon as I needed it.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked at Short and Tall. "W-what's going on?"

Short shrugged and made a show of looking around the building as Tall pulled what seemed to be a flute out of his pocket. "That tumour of yours… you came into contact with something that shouldn't exist. It's impossible and yet there, regardless. The only way for it to exist would be if something that can travel through time had a hand in it. So we're going to summon it here."

The new guy pressed a gun to my forehead before I could even react. "Don't open the ball in your hand," he said calmly, as if he were ordering lunch. "The moment I see you move to release it, your brains are going to paint the wall behind you."

I gulped and obeyed instantly.

"The only method to summon a time traveller though," Short continued as if nothing had ever happened, "belongs in the special properties of a Time Flute. They only exist in Orre and are sacred objects. They also break after use, which makes this all the more important."

"You're our leverage here," the new guy said. "We know you've got something to do with Celebi. If you do, it won't want you dead, will it?"

"And if it does?" I asked.

He flicked the safety off. "Then you're dead."

I glanced over at Tall. He looked at Short, shared a nod and pulled the flute to his lips. It was made of green glass and seemed to be falling apart. As soon as he played, it was like everything stopped. All the outside noise seemed to die and everything focused entirely on the tune he was playing. It was beautiful, yet haunting at the same time. Almost like it was something we weren't ever meant to hear.

He stopped playing and pulled the flute away. It wobbled a bit and then just crumbled to dust in his hands. I stared at it for a long moment, waiting for something to happen. A burst of light, an earthquake, a flash of lightning or even a tornado.

"Did it work?" Short asked.

Tall frowned. "I don't-"

I heard the sound of wind through tree leaves. It was almost nothing until suddenly it was all around me. There was a little spark of green light in front of me, then suddenly the new guy's head just wasn't on his shoulders anymore. Before I'd even fully turned to look at Short and Tall their bodies fell over, heads missing.

I suddenly felt very, _very_ exposed.

I was about to turn around and make a run for it when a flash of green light appeared before my eyes. When it dimmed I found myself face to face with the creature responsible for bringing me here. It seemed bored, floating there before me.

More than that, it was juggling the heads of the people it just killed.

It looked at me, let all the heads drop to the floor and with a large sigh, shook its head and spoke in a perfect human voice,

"I really don't like it when people try to summon me."


	56. Return to the Origin

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Return to the Origin**

* * *

_The truth is rarely pure and never simple _~ Oscar Wilde

**-O-O-O-**

"_When your enemy is about to die, never lie. Nothing crushes hope like the truth when its wrapped in a punch to the heart."_

- Akuze 'Kangas' Khan, infamous pokémon warlord. _(2398)._

**-O-O-O-**

_Run!_

My every instinct screamed at me to listen. To run screaming for my life, to never look back and to forget about the thing floating before me. It was the only way I'd be able to survive.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the thing said. It rolled back a paw and stared at it, almost as if it were examining its nails. "I'm a time traveller, remember? Anywhere you go, I can just pop up there without any notice, even have myself a holiday in between. Being able to teleport helps too, of course."

I backed away and hit the wall behind me. "So what are you planning to do to me then?"

It shrugged carelessly, like it was deciding between drinks. "Well, mostly my plan is to kill you. But who's to say I have to do that instantly? You know what I've found out after centuries of doing this? People just don't seem to want to die when they don't know what's going on. And more than that, I feel bad when I kill them before they know why I even put them here. I mean, I've lived since what was nearly the start of time and there's still lots I don't know. Living for only maybe two, three decades? That's got to be rough."

I gulped and gave it a shaky smile. "Well, you could always let me live for another few decades, at least then I'd figure out a few things on my own."

It smiled at me then threw back its head in a laugh. "I like you. You're one of my favourite pets, you know that? Most of them… they're so _boring. _Do exactly what they need to, then they just accept death so quickly that there's no fun in chasing them down. They don't even care why they're being killed. At least you fight back."

I pressed against the wall in an attempt to get away from it. I couldn't force my way through concrete, no matter how old and disused it was. As the thing floated around in the air, I waited until its back was turned and ran for the door.

It appeared in front of my face before I'd even taken two steps.

I shrieked and jumped backwards as it tsked and shook its head at me. I remembered just what I was dealing with and decided that _maybe_ annoying it wasn't in my best interests.

"Are you afraid to die?" it asked me.

I backed away from it, slowly turning until I could run somewhere else in the building. Upstairs, outside or even just across the room, anything so that I could get away from it. "Would I be doing this if I wasn't?"

"Good point," it conceded with a grin. "Do you know how _annoying_ it is to not be able to die? At least, not permanently. Do you even know how we were created?"

I nodded quickly. Anything to stall it, though it seemed happy enough to do that on its own. "You were created to keep balance of things, weren't you? You and your race, with victini as your jailors. They watched over you and made sure you did everything right, until you went to war with them and wiped them out."

"True, all true," it said, waving a hand as if it held a large staff. "But I'll give you the full story. May as well. If I were to die for a final time, I'd want to know as much as I could. And let's face it; you're pretty damn unlikely to escape this, so no harm. And even if you do manage to escape, I'll still be back to kill you at some point. I'll be the one to kill you, the only thing that's uncertain is when I'll do so."

It spun around, almost as if it were dancing. I couldn't stand how _happy_ it sounded, almost as if it were enjoying lecturing me on everything.

"You see, the first god there ever was… the first one pokémon ever had at least, created many things. The Dialga, The Palkia, all of those freaky-ass powerful beasties. Manaphy were created to guard the seas from The Groudon's total wrath, Shaymin, the land from The Kyogre. Mew were created with the idea that they could mutate so much they'd eventually be able to create any pokémon. Then there's Victini. They came about after we were created; we needed something that could make sure the power didn't go to our heads, after all."

It sighed and just floated there for a moment. Its wings weren't beating, yet it remained held aloft in the air. Everything about it gave off power, even the air itself seemed to run away from the pokémon's very presence.

"There were only a few of us at the start. We were all partnered up; one of us, one of them – Victini. They were good partners," it reflected with a smile.

"Then why'd you kill them all?" I asked.

It shrugged. "Honestly? There's another side of the story you haven't heard. Some of us thought that we should be able to have further control over the timeline, to directly influence what was happening, rather than changing little things to create an effect hundreds, if not thousands of years later. Then the Victini, well they decided that if they were strong enough to guard us, why couldn't they take our power and use it better than we could?" It rested a hand underneath its chin and sighed. "You see, there's always two sides to every story. You just really happened to see the same one most of the time.

"Anyway!" It reclined in the air, almost like it was sitting down. "We went to war, things happened and only one of them survived. But that's not my point! You see, there was little use in creating something that could travel through time and alter it if they grew old and died. We don't ever change, you see. I was like this when I was born, others of my kind are now exactly as they were when they were born. We're constant, whilst time is ever-changing. It was the only way to make sure that we wouldn't die out and leave the timeline to screw itself over."

"You don't age then?" I asked it. "You're born as big as you are?"

It shrugged. "Everything's made differently. What's the point in making us able to age if we have to be constant? You see, because time keeps us as a constant, we can't die. While we can actually die, we never stay dead."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked it. I was slowly making my way towards the door. I knew it wouldn't be long before I could escape out of them.

Then the celebi vanished from in front of me. "It's hard to explain," it said, directly behind me. I span around and found it floating there, blocking the only way between me and the exit.

"I know!" it exclaimed, snapping its fingers. I was surprised it even had any _to_ snap. "There's this programme you humans have on your television. It has this really strange guy in a big, long blue trench coat that has sex with a lot of men whilst fighting aliens."

I frowned. "It rings a bell," I said, searching for a new exit.

"Well," said the celebi. "Would you believe I actually met him? Long story short, I pissed off The Palkia one day and in his rage, he threw me into another dimension where pokémon don't really exist. And then lo and behold, there's that man in a blue trench coat. He saw me and told me that I was a 'fine specimen of otherworldly beauty'. Then he decided that we should spend the night getting to know each other.

"So I killed him."

"You killed a television character in another reality?" It was insane, even for my life.

"Exactly!" the pokémon spun around and winked at me. "Except, well, he didn't stay dead. A few seconds later he gasped and suddenly came back to life. Let me tell you, when I put a hole in someone's chest, I generally don't expect it to repair itself and for the person to get up moments later. Anyway, I wiped his memory of me just before The Palkia pulled me back here. But the point of this is that whoever that guy was, he's like us celebi. We can't stay dead. When we die, our bodies can be repaired, then we come back to life again. It can be pretty slow when we're not placed somewhere special, but when we are, we heal pretty fast.

"But there's one big problem when we die. The first few times, our bodies take as long to repair as we have been alive. So if we've been alive for a year and we die, our bodies take another year to repair. Eventually we get better at repairing, but…" It sighed and actually managed to look sad. "None of us knew. Can you imagine, living for like twenty years, then staying dead for another twenty? There's an afterlife for us pokémon, you know? I'm not sure about humans, but when we die, we see the afterlife, even get to experience it.

"If it takes twenty years for our bodies to repair themselves, that's twenty years we spend in the afterlife. Then we're ripped out and placed back into these bodies once more." It pointed at its head. "Can you imagine remembering that all? After that, we stay dead for half of our lifespans. Then it keeps halving until we're pretty much coming back to life in seconds."

"That's… horrible," I said, unable to help myself. After so long hating on the creature for what it had done, it was strange to see things from its side. I frowned, hearing my thoughts and became aware of a little pressure on my brain. I smacked at the air between us and bared my teeth at it. "Nice story, but don't press on my emotions to agree with you."

It shrugged. "Force of habit. But can you imagine what we have to go through, whenever we die? We didn't even know this at first. The first of us to die was nearly fifty-five years old when he died. Imagine our surprise when that amount of time later, he came back to life. Since then, we've realised just what happens. So when more of us are born, we kill them."

"You kill your young?" I wasn't sure whether to be horrified or intrigued by that.

"It helps," it said with a shrug. "That way, they're only in the afterlife for a few minutes, at most. When they live, they don't have to carry around this massive weight on their shoulders, knowing what lies for them in the beyond and knowing that they'll never be able to reach it."

I glanced backwards and saw no escape route. Only more empty space. I glared at it all and tried to figure out a new way. Maybe I could go up a flight of stairs and leap out of a window.

"So where does this all fit into your master plan involving GS Balls?"

It smiled again. "That's a bit further down the line. You've heard of The Arceus, haven't you?"

"The current pokémon god?" I said with a nod. "It beat the other one about a thousand years ago, didn't it?"

"Correct!" the celebi laughed, throwing its hands into the air. I half expected confetti to appear out of nowhere. "That holds the power now. And part of that power is being able to decide the fate of the rest of pokémon. Do they live or do they die? Do their powers stay the same, or do they get changed? That four legged goat didn't change anything when it attained power. That's why we need someone who knows our perils to take over – to enact our plan!"

"That's why you let out the original celebi," I deduced. "That's the only one of you strong enough to beat The Arceus, isn't it?"

It teleported in front of my face, grabbed my cheeks and laughed. "Close, but not close enough!" There was a hum and suddenly something knocked me off my feet. I landed on the ground a few feet away, rolled into a wall and stayed there for a moment, winded. The celebi appeared in front of me again, reclined in the air as if lying on a couch and shook its head at me. "You were doing so well too!"

It barked a laugh at me as I tried to see where my fallen poké ball had rolled to. Nowhere that I could see. The time devil floated down and took up my vision again. "We've got a better plan for all of that. You see, to take on the title for godhood, really, you've got to have a few special tricks. Regigigas is able to create followers out of rock, ice or metal. Arceus can split itself into different copies that represent the elements. Being able to pop back and forth through time just isn't enough to cut it against those sort of skills. But, there's always one alternative to tricks, isn't there?"

I coughed out what tasted like blood and glared up at it, knowing exactly what it was talking about. "Brute force."

"Bingo!" This time, confetti really did appear when it threw out its hands. It gave me a confused look when I stared blankly at the paper. "What? I'm _psychic_, remember? I can read your thoughts quite easily, dark adaptation or no. Plus, being able to pop back and forth through time almost imperceptibly helps."

"Back to my point." It slammed one fist into the other. "Brute force is the key now."

"What pokémon are you going to use for that then?" Try as I might, I couldn't think of anything strong enough that would be able to do something like that, as well as being able to be tricked or enthralled by a few celebi.

"You won't have ever heard of it. After everything that's happened, it really hates humans. In fact, it wants to destroy them all. So we get both our goals; we can die and so does the rest of the world. Without a world to look after, we don't have to exist to look after it." It smiled and placed its hands behind its head. "I don't get why honestly. You humans are so useful. None of this would have ever been possible without you guys. Because you were all so inquisitive, you went out, found what you needed to and messed around with it. And now, you've saddled yourselves with mewtwo."

The name was like another language to me. I blinked at it from my place on my floor and tried to push myself up to my feet. "What? I've never heard of that before."

"Of course you haven't," the celebi said. "Why would have you? Everyone that knows about it is dead or under its thrall." It laughed and shook its head. "To think, everyone was so confused when that Champion in Kanto decided to waste his life away living atop a mountain. No one ever thought that he'd encountered something he shouldn't have. Mewtwo hates humans. He wants them all dead. And right now, he's our boss."

"Your _boss_?" That was surprising. I managed to push myself to my feet and winced at the bruises I could feel already forming. "How? I mean, why the hell would you actually let that pokémon control you? How do you know it's even going to let you all die when – _if_ – it beats The Arceus?"

It shrugged. "We have our ways. Favour for a favour, that sort of thing."

I didn't like the tone of its voice. Just like that, I realised what it meant and exactly what they were planning. "You're going to double cross it. Wait until its beaten Arceus, or until they're both worn out, then send in the thing you let out of the GS Ball and let it beat them both."

It gave me a look that betrayed just how right I was. "I don't know what you're talking about. We're planning on honouring our agreement."

It was that busy on pretending to be innocent, I saw an opening. By some small miracle I saw the poké ball I'd dropped. It had rolled right nearby where I was standing. I leapt at it, managed to grab it before I hit the floor, rolled and threw the thing before I could even stand back up again.

It was another miracle when Lacey popped out of the ball. She didn't need instructing on anything. As soon as she saw the celebi, her eyes narrowed, she hissed and then she threw and arm at it. There was a massive gust of wind that rattled everything in the place, yet the celebi just vanished from where it was and reappeared behind her.

She hissed, spun around with her hand outstretched and went to slap it. It ducked underneath her blow as she vanished out of existence. The celebi floated up into the air as she appeared beneath it and sliced at nothing. It sighed at her, almost like it was disappointed before it kicked her in the back of the head and sent her flying across the room.

She crashed into the wall, groaned and fell backwards, dazed and out of it. I flinched as the celebi slowly turned to face me. I wanted to run towards my pokémon, but the celebi's gaze on me was pretty much paralyzing.

"I know, I was hoping for more too," the celebi said. "You can let out some more pokémon too. I'd always be happy to knock out a few more."

"Shut up," I growled at it.

It threw back its head and laughed. "So full of anger! See, that's what I like so much about you! Out of everyone we could have used, you were just so _perfect_ for what needed to be done! All that anger that's been cultured; it's really quite remarkable what can happen in the space of a brain and a few years."

"Shut _up!_" I screamed and threw a poké ball at it. It bounced off the thing's head and exploded open, dumping Gemini almost on top of it. There was a long silence as both the psychics looked at each other, the tension thick enough I could almost see it.

Gemini broke first. She roared and kicked at the thing. The celebi just blinked from existence and appeared a few paces away. Gemini spun around, eyes glowing. Little bits of debris started to cluster towards her, orbiting her, spinning faster and faster. I jumped back and grabbed onto the first stable structure I could find before I got pulled in too. All the while the celebi just sat there, no expression on its face.

With the sound of an explosion, the debris went flying at the celebi. It gave it one simple look, gestured with a hand and sent everything crashing through a wall.

Gemini appeared behind it with a flash. Electricity discharged from her horns as her tail snapped onto the celebi's back and clamped down on its wings. Her tail shook the celebi like a rag doll, yet the whole time the celebi remained motionless. With a little explosion of dust, the celebi disappeared, revealing the real one floating behind her, watching with an interested smile.

"Hello to you too."

Gemini snarled and reared back again. The celebi sighed and just teleported away yet again from another attack.

"Really?" It asked, clearly bored. "How long is it going to be until you give up? I might not be getting any older, but you'll probably have forgotten who you are by the time you've finished."

_[You killed my foal.]_ Her voice was deadly calm, enough so that it made me shudder, though I wasn't even the target. I moved around them as subtly as I could, aiming to get Lacey and run the hell out of there as quickly as possible. _[You made him experience a hell that should never be inflicted on any living creature. I will make you pay until you regret every __**second**__ of torture you inflicted!]_

I made it to Lacey as the celebi burst out laughing. "Regret? Why would I ever have that? Everything I've done has worked out perfectly. Your spawn was just collateral. And I wouldn't be going anywhere if I were you."

I froze; Lacey draped across my shoulders and gave a nervous glance towards the celebi. It fixed its gaze on me, shrugged and spun around Gemini. "Would you honestly leave this one here to deal with me? Actually, yes, you probably would. But you realise what's outside this building, don't you?"

I took a quick glance towards the hole that had been opened up in the wall. Laying all around the building was a massive forest that encompassed as far as I could see. Images of people strangled by trees sprang into my mind and I shuddered.

"You raised this one well," the thing said as it turned back to Gemini. "At least this one realises danger and knows its place."

_[Do not __**dare**__to-]_

The celebi gestured with a hand and instantly Gemini stopped speaking. She looked as shocked as I was, her eyes flickering blue. "You're starting the bore me," the thing said. With another gesture, Gemini was knocked off her feet, into the ceiling above and then back down into the floor. It floated up a little and became just a shadow in the sun looming above it. There was a deathly stillness to the air moments before a huge blast of energy hammered down into Gemini, destroyed the floor surrounding her and left her at the bottom of a small crater.

"That's better," the celebi said, theatrically wiping its forehead. "Don't worry, she'll live," it said as I glanced towards her. "Really I should have done to her what I did to her kid." It stopped and smiled like a serial killer. In a way, I suppose that's what it was. "It was pretty funny, actually. It thought it could help the trainer to do so much, but well, I think you've learnt that it's kinda tough to best something strong in battle."

It had mentioned before that special skills were used to beat the previous pokémon gods. Brute force was the last option. Maybe I could use it in the same way, I figured. Try to exploit something about the celebi, if not, attack with all guns blazing.

First, I needed to distract it a little longer.

"So that trainer, just what did you want him to do?"

It shrugged. "Simple, meaningless things really. He did it quite well too. All he had to do was become a public figure, spread fear and mentions of a horrible future to everyone and that would be that. His job was done, so he was… fired."

I winced at the way it said that. I didn't want to know just how _fired_ he was. "So that was his entire goal? What did you get out of that?"

"Progress." It smiled and rubbed its hands together. "Make the humans panic and they tend to either group together to survive, or attack each other. So exploit that, sow the seeds of distrust between everyone and soon enough, it all boils over. Humans will be so busy attacking each other they won't realise that pokémon have had a change in leadership and the world is doomed until it's too late."

"So is my future before or after that plan of yours blooms?"

It gave me a look I didn't understand then burst out laughing. "Oh, don't worry. Your future's non-existent. You're never going to live long enough to see anything happen anyway." Its eyes glowed and something punched me in the stomach. I dropped Lacey, doubled over, coughed up blood and leant on all fours as the wind flew out of my lungs. "You see, there's a number of different ways I can kill you. Each and every one more fun than the last."

It appeared in my face suddenly. "But, I suppose you know full well about that now, don't you?"

I moved to punch it. It laughed and floated just out of my reach. I glanced away and saw the remains of the people's bodies it had already killed. I knew they had to have weapons on them. Mine had been taken from me. It was my only hope.

I blinked and the celebi was floating above them all, spinning three guns around in its psychic grasp. "Looking for these?" it asked. It snatched one out of the air and investigated it with almost child-like curiosity. "I've always wondered, just how do these things work? Humans are so inquisitive, it's kinda unfair really. We _know_ everything we need to, as well as a few things we don't need to. We accept what we know and act because of that. My species know we can't die, so we act because of that. Humans though… you always have to figure out the reason behind everything, even if you already know what happens."

It closed an eye and pointed the gun, miming shooting something. "Before, I used to be so confused about why you did that." It dropped the gun and let it float in front of it, almost like a phantom spectre was grasping it. "But then I realised, that was what made you so _brilliant!_ I mean, give a pokémon a rock and tell it they'll never make it bleed; they'll accept it and keep the knowledge. Give a human a rock and tell them it will never bleed and they'll do everything in their power to find out exactly why it never would."

I snorted at the thing, air only just coming back to my lungs. "That's because it has no blood. How can it bleed if it doesn't have blood?"

"_Exactly!_" It grabbed my cheeks, forced me to smile and then teleported onto my back and used me like a chair. "That's what I mean. You seek to understand everything, even if you know you never will. I admire that and that's why I try my best to tell you everything I know before I kill you all. I mean, you're going to die anyway, so no harm in letting a few secrets spill out, huh? And so far, everyone seems to always accept death a bit more if they realise they know everything I can tell them."

It teleported again, back to the floating guns. It grabbed one, held it again and squeezed the trigger. It went off with a bang loud enough to scare the celebi into dropping it. It looked at the gun on the floor, over to the bullet hole in the ceiling and burst out laughing. "See that? That's _awesome!_ That comes from humans seeking to understand things. There's a few pokémon every so often that want to learn like humans do, but for the most part, we're always comfortable knowing what we know.

"Which brings me back to my original point." The guns all grouped together on invisible strings and before my eyes were squashed into one misshapen lump of metal. With a flick of its wrist, the celebi sent the lump flying into a corner of the building. "Humans like to learn about things. Natural things, unnatural things, other humans and even pokémon. They have to learn about it all. That knowledge has brought about a lot of things, like porygons. Castform too, though let's not get into that. The main thing humans have done is create mewtwo. The problem is… they made it too… _human_.

"We psychics are limited, you see." It floated down and sat on Lacey's unconscious body, shifting long white hairs out of its way. "It's a means to make sure we don't go crazy with our power. Because we always accept what we know at face value, we don't get annoyed at what we don't know. Now, imagine giving something with psychic power the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, then give it human characteristics, like needing to understand everything." It gestured with a hand. "On the one hand, it makes a good project." It pulled out the other. "On the other hand, _bad_ idea. Create something that needs to know just why it was created? Going to drive it insane. Mewtwo doesn't know why it was created. Why it had to endure all those experiments. Why it's the only one of its kind. Because it's got human attributes, it doesn't even know whether or not it's human or pokémon."

It disappeared from Lacey's back and sat down on the remains of a broken wooden pillar. "Now, factor all of that information in. Add to it that not only is mewtwo quite frankly the most intelligent pokémon in existence, but it can also learn anything it wants to by eating brains."

I nearly choked right then and there. "It eats _brains?_"

The celebi rolled its eyes. "Metaphorically speaking. It's a psychic, it basically telepathically rips the information out of something's brain and absorbs it itself. Now, putting a creature with that ability in a room with possibly the most intelligent human scientists of that generation?"

I winced at the implication. The celebi laughed. "That's _exactly_ the reaction I was expecting! See, pokémon like me, we hear that, we understand it, we say nothing on it. Only a few pokémon would be able to wonder why something like that happened. The fact that I can't…" It shook its hands besides its head and scowled. "It infuriates me! That I know I should think like that and yet can't actually do so!"

It sighed and placed a hand on its head. "That's why humans are so _useful_ for changing things. If you told a pokémon to do something, most of them would do exactly just that, not doing anything extra on top of it all. Tell a human? They have to figure out what every possible action might cause. They're like ripples in water, one causes more and more. All we need to do is tell you to do the most important thing, then everything else just falls into place then and there."

While it was busy talking, I slowly moved to grab the emergency release on my bandolier. Once my fingers were within an inch's grasp of it, they suddenly locked up, almost like something invisible was holding them back.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," the celebi said lazily. "I've already defeated two of your pokémon without much effort. Two of your strongest too. Really willing to risk anymore? They might not survive it."

I glared at it and pulled back my hand. It smiled at me. "Good. You're not as dumb as you look after all."

I frowned at it. I had nothing else on me. My bag was somewhere, most likely lost forever. My pockets were empty and all I had on me were my pokémon. I glanced over at the dead bodies and wondered just whether or not they'd brought pokémon with them too.

"These?" the celebi said, holding out a collection of poké balls before it, all floating eerily in the air. "_Psychic_, remember? You think it, I hear it. These are just collateral, really. Except these." It flicked two poké balls away into the air. They rolled in either direction of me, one landing near where I left Lacey and the other near what looked like a rattata hole in the wall.

"Empty," it sighed dramatically. "As for the rest of them." A simple hand gesture and the remaining poké balls were reduced to dust. I flinched as I watched it, remembering Sophie. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like the celebi had the upper hand.

Then I caught Lacey's hand moving. I smirked as she grasped the poké ball and continued to play dead.

"You don't leave anything to chance?" I asked the floating creature.

It grinned and leant back in the air once more. "Why should I? When I was new at this, I made a lot of mistakes. I've learnt from them. Even now, I might make some. But it doesn't matter, because if I use anyone after you, at least I'll have learnt from whatever might go wrong here."

I glanced at Lacey and caught her eye. Slowly she pulled herself to her feet. "Mistakes like what?" I asked.

Lacey was on her feet instantly. With shaking limbs she managed to throw the poké ball at the celebi. It spun around just in time to catch it in the face. The poké ball cracked open with blinding white light that encompassed the entire creature. Even when it was merely white light, it still looked bored. It gestured with a hand and the poké ball snapped in two, leaving it back where it was, a little more shaken then it would probably have liked to reveal.

"That was unexpected," it muttered. It turned around and its eyes widened just a little when it saw the rest of my pokémon staring it down. It blinked, yawned and leant back in the air again. "Oh boy, more victims."

Erra zapped it at the same time Loki vanished from sight. The celebi teleported out of the way, grabbed Loki from the shadows and kicked him into the magnemite. Alistair caught them as Scar leapt into the air and bathed the celebi in flames. It looked at the charmeleon just before the flames hit, threw up an orange barrier and watched without interest as the flames parted before they even met it.

Another gesture and Scar was sent flying out of the air. On shaking legs Lacey tried to slash at the creature, but it just teleported behind her, kicked her in the back of the head and watched her crash into the floor. Alistair leapt at it, elbow blades glowing black. Everytime he attacked, he met only air. The celebi dodged or teleported between each blow, occasionally stopping to poke out his tongue or even just laugh. Alistair scowled, sliced at it and teleported at the same moment it did. He appeared behind it, brought down both blades on its head and splattered the floor with blood.

The celebi drew back, holding a hand to its head. It sighed, floated up to the sunlight and became just a silhouette once more. With a flash it was gone, appeared behind Alistair fully healed, grabbed one of his elbows and snapped the blade off.

He bit off his scream as quickly as he could, leapt into the air and kicked the celebi away. His hands shook as he tried to reattach the severed blade, but nothing seemed to be happening. One of his hands glowed blue as it held the severed blade to his elbow, slowly forcing them back into place.

Loki grabbed the celebi after Alistair kicked it, bit down on its wings and dragged it into the shadows. Suddenly the building came alive with screams. Each and every shadow bled lucid green blood. Finally they appeared once more, Loki looking rather battered but with the remains of a wing in his mouth. He smirked at the celebi as it scowled, holding its hands over a few larger cuts.

I caught Alistair's warning just in time. I scrunched my eyes shut and saw bright spots as Erra lit up the room. I peeled them open and found myself staring at ten copies of her, all floating round the celebi, fixing it with the same one-eyed stare.

The celebi rolled its eyes and gestured at one. It exploded into empty air. The real Erra latched onto its back, glowed silver and dragged it down to the floor. All around me the air seemed to feel heavier as Erra and the celebi headed for the ground even faster.

They hit it with enough force to send wood and concrete flying everywhere. Erra came out of the dust, clicking wildly just as it caught fire. The flames whirled around us all, sucking in all the remaining air. Finally they peppered out and revealed the celebi floating in the middle, somewhat lopsided and with both arms broken.

Then I saw there's something orange glowing in its mouth. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Everything became quiet. The glow was almost hypnotic. I couldn't do anything but watch.

Then an explosion tore through my ears.

The glow headed towards us like a speeding train. Out of nowhere an orange barrier appeared. The beam smacked into it, sent cracks running through it like network of veins. There was a sound like metal breaking just as the barrier shattered and the beam flew off in every direction, peppering the building and bringing an entire section of the roof down nearby.

My heart was racing faster than I'd ever thought. I glanced back and saw Gemini panting, barely able to stand and with a small smile on her face.

And against all odds, the celebi still floated there, watching us. Everything done to it seemed to inconvenience it less than a zubat bite.

"That wasn't nice," it said. Its throat sounded sore and burnt out. One of its wings was charred beyond recognition. It scowled. "So now you've left me with little choice. What does a leader do when his subjects rebel? He makes an example."

It thrust out an arm. I flinched. Nothing happened.

Then with a small smile, it started moving its hand between us. "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo. Catch a lopunny by the toe. If it squeals, slit its throat. Eeny. Meeny. Miny. Mo."

It vanished and appeared in between us all. It winked, grabbed Scar and disappeared yet again.

A second later it appeared in front of us again.

This time, without Scar.

It took a moment for my mind to process it all.

"W-where is he? What did you do to him?"

The celebi laughed. I noticed that somehow, it was fully healed. Everything we'd done was for nothing. "I made an example of him. A little trip through time, nothing big." It floated back and examined its nails. "Right now he's somewhere in the time stream having to deal with the biggest, meanest pokémon you've ever seen. I give him about five minutes until he's used as a toothpick by a big, ancient aerodactyl."

Everything inside me seemed to die. All I felt was cold. "No…" I whispered. I couldn't get my head around it. "That's not possible."

"_Totally_ possible," it said with a laugh. "Ask your girafarig. I did it to her kid, after all."

I glanced at her. She looked down to the floor, eyes shining, not saying a word. "How?" I whispered as I looked back. "How are you undamaged?"

It smiled. "Hello? _Time traveller_. I'm gone for a second for you, but I could have spent a year on holiday. After I dropped off your lizard, I took a nice, healing vacation." It clicked its neck. "Just the trick, really. All those injuries have gone."

It was true. Everything we'd done was for nothing.

"Don't worry, I'll soon bring the rest of your pokémon to visit him." It smiled and met my eyes. "You though? You'll never get to see him again."

"And why's that?" I growled. "You already dragged me through time once! As if you're against doing it a second time."

It gave me a flat look. Then it burst out laughing. "Wow, the power of belief!" It shook its head and wiped away a tear. "A little psychic pressure here and there, a bit of blurring the lines and what do you know? You've created a whole set of memories!"

Something about what it was saying felt eerie. It made my skin crawl and the back of my neck shiver. "What are you talking about?"

It laughed again. "You! The ultimate project! The final project!"

I wanted to throw something at it. "Shut up and tell me why you damn well took me from the future in the first place! Why didn't you save Alex and just take him instead?"

Its eyes met mine again. They were brimming with laughter and behind that… pity?

"Dear, sweet, _silly_ human," it said. "You just don't get it, do you? You're not from the future. You never were."


	57. Time of Judgement

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**Time of Judgement**

* * *

_Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe~ _Alphonso X

**-O-O-O-**

"_Everything was given the power to create. It started with the original, then from there it has worked its way down. Every creature - once old enough - can create. Creation is the ultimate power. It will always corrupt someone."_

- Anon. _(2187)._

**-O-O-O-**

Time felt like it had reached a standstill.

"That's impossible." My mouth was flopping like a beached magikarp. What the creature said just didn't make any sort of sense to me. "I've seen it! I experienced every damn moment I was there in that godforsaken hellhole! You pulled me out of it! How the hell can you tell me I wasn't from the future?"

The celebi shrugged. It waved a hand and disabled all of my pokémon, placing them in an eerie stasis. "Easier to talk if I don't have them trying to attack me every few moments," it said simply. It looked at me, sighed and sat down on a ruined staircase. "You're not from the future. You never were. Everything you experienced was all just in your head." It pointed to its own turnip-shaped dome and made a crazy gesture. "It's quite amazing really, what can be done with the right influence."

I couldn't accept it. "That's not possible. I was _there_! Probably while you were floating in that stupid healing pool of yours to come back to life after trying to kill another one of your victims!"

"Projects," it said pointedly. "Every one of you humans I give a task to? You're my projects. It's quite simple really. That healing pool you mentioned? It's a divine gift from the first pokémon god there ever was. It heals any wounds over time by keeping you in a sort of stasis. The water in there sustains life, supplies things with everything they need to live."

"Bull," I growled. "How the hell does _water_ manage to let people breathe?"

It shrugged. "Have you not been listening to what I've been telling you?" It pointed to itself. "Pokémon. I accept knowledge as I'm told it. I know the water sustains life. I don't know how. There's no need for me to know." It shook its head. "We keep you there. Every one of you people that we send on these tasks. We feed you images from the future we've seen. We give you enough so that you'll believe you're actually from there. Add a little detail here, something there and suddenly, the brain runs on its own and makes a whole story out of it.

"It's quite amazing really, how easily that fell into place. When the time comes, we just pull you out of there and teleport you to where we need you to be."

"But… that doesn't make sense! If I was grown in a little batch of mythical water somewhere, why the hell do I have scars that I remember getting?" I pulled up my top and showed it a few of the bullet wounds I'd gained. The ones I knew happened in my future. The one I _was _from.

It sighed. "You're not the first project we've had. A few of them sometime ago got so much closer than we would have thought to figuring out everything. They found where we keep the rest of you. They broke in and tried to kill as many of you as possible, all to make sure we couldn't carry on." It pointed at one of my scars. "What you remember… it is sort of right. The core memories are still there. Just strip away the framework of you being from the future. Those people got far enough to find where we kept you and shot a few of you. Yourself included. A few died, a few survived. But those of you that survived, you still didn't wake up. Everything in your brain created a story around what happened in order to make it form some sort of sensible situation."

I pressed one of the scars and felt my brain swim with memories. The ones of how I'd gotten the scars.

The ones I was now being told were all make-believe.

"Well then how the hell do you even know how to do any of this?" I snarled at it.

It smiled. "Mewtwo. The scientists that created him did exactly that to him. They gave him false memories of growing up somewhere. But mewtwo broke past them and saw that he'd really been bred in a lab. After he escaped, he wanted to seek revenge instantly. We found him and persuaded him that revenge takes time. He's the silent partner in most of our operations. Probably why you haven't had the foggiest idea that he was part of this. We might be trying to cause the end of the world, but we're damn good at what we do."

I needed to sit down. I collapsed to the floor and stared up at the creature. "But… why? Why keep it secret that mewtwo's the brains behind this?"

It smiled again. "Mewtwo is the most hunted pokémon ever. Every person that's high enough up to know about him, does. A lot are under his thrall, spies, as it were. They throw out the ideas that people need to find mewtwo. If anyone reports back with a good enough lead on mewtwo's location, they die and then mewtwo covers his tracks. Your good friend is going to be one of those people soon. She's only searching for celebi because one of mewtwo's thralls suggested that finding us would be key to their investigation." It winked. "She's good at her job. If she finds good enough evidence, she'll get found out and turned into a thrall herself. If not, well…" It pulled its hand across its neck.

I was too shocked for words. "So she dies or loses control of her mind?" I couldn't think of inflicting that on her. Despite the facts that we were at odds and always suspicious of each other when we worked together, I still thought of her as a friend.

"No, no, she won't lose her mind." The celebi grinned at me. "You see, the best thing about the thralls is that they don't realise they're under any possession. Mewtwo can lurk in the base of their brains, finding out what he needs to know, then occasionally take over and force them to do specific things. Then he creates fake memories for them, makes them think that they've done something else and gets away without them ever knowing.

"Of course, that doesn't mean he's all that powerful." The celebi fluttered up and stared at its nails once more. "He doesn't understand subtlety. Mewtwo is permanently angry, permanently afraid. It makes him rather like a wild card. Anything presses him to hard and he reacts in a way we can't expect. Like you really. That's where our inspiration came from."

I didn't like the fact I was being compared to a scientific experiment of a pokémon. "What's that supposed to mean?"

It smiled again. "Everyone else, we've given specific tasks to. 'Do this', 'do that'. They do it all perfectly. But sometimes, a little chaos is needed to grease the wheels a little better. That's where you come in. Anger and fear are two of the most powerful motivators. Mewtwo explained it all to us; he ripped it from one of the scientist's brains. You see, in both cases, adrenaline is produced. You do things that you weren't normally capable of, get to be a little stronger or a little faster. Now, fear retains your ability to think somewhat clearly. Anger? You're a lost cause."

It appeared in front of me, poked me in the forehead and teleported back to the stairs. "You're angry. Almost all the time. Every little thing angers you or scares you. Then we load you up with images of a horrible future, make you experience them all what you think is first-hand. Because of that, you carry the fear of that future happening. You get angry at anyone that might cause it to happen, or so you think. All you need is the occasional nudge in the right direction, then suddenly you're knocking down the walls while everyone else is disabling the security.

"You're a wild card, sent into the ranks to cause as much destruction and mayhem as possible." It smiled, disappeared and then came back into view seconds later, holding a new flute. It looked exactly the same as one of the ones the people had summoned it with. It winked, pulled it to its lips and played a little tune. "We make these, you know? Attune them specifically so that we'll be able to hear them, no matter what time we're in. They send out a signal, letting us hone in on them and appear in the right place. They used to have a better purpose. We'd give them to human or pokémon leaders and tell them to use them only when they came across something that was impossible to overcome.

"They were part of our original purpose. You see, the whole point to life is that everything can be overcome, in one way or another. It's like a puzzle, but occasionally, a piece is missing. So we go back through time and create that piece, so when it's needed, it's there and fits in perfectly. We made psychics a lot weaker than they were because their power was threatening everything. We made the magnemite species steel-like to help them survive. We even went back and changed humans. We made you stronger, used mew and spliced you with pokémon genetics."

It placed the flute down, disappeared and reappeared, this time with a book. "It's here, you see. I do love Sinnoh, they really do believe in the myths and hold them tighter than any other country. Listen to this." It cleared its throat and smirked at me.

'_There once were Pokémon that _

'_became very close to humans. _

'_There once were humans and Pokémon _

'_that ate together at the same table. _

'_It was a time when there existed no _

'_differences to distinguish the two.'_

"Pretty, isn't it?" it said with a smile. A flash of light and the book was gone, the celebi in the same place but with the flute in its hands again. "That's what we did. We went back and made humans almost the exact same as pokémon. That way, you were able to survive accidental injuries from pokémon. Before that, you used to be so much weaker. Now, you can take pokémon attacks, survive falls from greater heights, even take blows to the head without just dying! It's remarkable really."

"So humans… are pokémon?" I scrunched my nose up and felt subconsciously for a tail or a second pair of ears.

"Somewhat," the celebi said. "You can't breathe fire or anything like that, but because of that, you began to adapt to pokémon. Some of you could resist heat more. Some of you dried out faster, others sunk quicker in water or found they could jump higher than others. We had to do it quickly, you see. Some stuff happened in Sinnoh. The nation went crazy, our goat-lord got involved and eventually stuff happened. Nothing would have survived if we hadn't gone back to change things so they could happen right when they needed to. In less than a decade everything changed. Pokémon went from being nicer to a lot more violent, people became adapted to pokémon and well… the whole world changed."

I tried to process everything it told me. It was fast becoming too much for my brain to handle. "You're trying to distract me," I accused it. "Why am I a wild card? What have I got to do with all of this?"

"Nothing and everything," it said cryptically. "In the grand scheme of things, you'll be forgotten. You'll be a footnote on a footnote. But we've made sure that you were in the right place at the right time, all the time." It sighed and leant back against the stairs, looking at the ceiling, hands behind its head. "Do you remember your first battle?"

I frowned, unsure as to where this was going. "Yeah," I said uncertainly. "I won, didn't I? And Loki went a little crazy." I glanced at the little devil. He was still frozen, as were the rest of them. I wondered just how powerful the celebi was, to keep them like that for so long, whilst being able to concentrate on other things.

It smiled. "Remember anything about the trainer?"

I tried and failed. "Not really."

It sighed, shook its head and spun round to face me. "But that was one of the most important things you could have ever done! Don't you remember? You beat him. Badly. Still with that attitude that we programmed into you. And you know what you told him when you beat him?" I shook my head. "You said - and I quote – '_Pokémon live and pokémon die, but when they're under our control, they're weapons, no matter whether they're also our allies or tools.'_"

I frowned. Distantly I could recall saying something like that. It was from the mentality I'd tried so hard to lose, yet kept creeping back up on me all the time. "That sounds like something I said."

"Sounds like," the celebi grunted with a roll of its eyes. "You told him that. He's taken that mentality with him since then. And you know what happens to him? Because of that, he starts a programme. It starts off small, disconnecting people from their pokémon, making them seem like tools of warfare. Over the years, it'll get more popular until one day, it's suddenly the attitude everyone has.

"You spoke to the professor here too," it said with a small chuckle. "You discussed so much about how military training would better people. He liked that idea. In fact, your government are going to pass it next year. And one of the main people that will do well? That kid you had your first battle with. Eventually, everyone's going to be military-trained, thinking pokémon as nothing more than a pistol.

"And then there's the one I doubt you'll remember at all." It made a shape in the air, almost like an S. "Slateport. When you were registering for your gym battle, you were amazed at how kids could go travelling based on their grades alone."

It rang a distant bell. "It still doesn't make that much sense."

"Well that started another snowball," it told me. "A woman overheard you. A powerful woman, with connections. Soon enough, schools are going to have a _lot_ more focus on survival training. And then, they'll also tie into the military training you helped set up. Three simple little things, three simple little conversations and you've changed the world.

"And let's not even get started on Aaron. Or you blowing up that lab. Fear and anger. Fear made you kill an Elite and set the foundations for war between two countries. Anger made you blow up an entire building just to make yourself feel better."

My face burnt bright red. "The people in there killed Xander! He didn't deserve to die like that! Then Mia was in there too and she died! And you think this is all some brilliant plot to make the world fall into ruin?"

"But it is!" it shouted joyously. "You get so _angry_, it's perfect! We just give you a little nudge, the tiniest idea of what to do, then your anger or fear makes it the only thing you can think about! All it took was influencing that machoke to kill your little pokémon, then everything fell into place!"

If I wasn't already on the floor, I would have fallen onto it. "You killed them," I whispered, feeling increasingly dead inside.

"Well, things had to be done," it said with a shrug. "Those outbreaks that were so common a while ago? It's quite amazing what they were doing."

I couldn't get past the thought that it had influenced Xander's death. "What?" I snarled at it. I wanted it to finish talking. I wanted to pull its head off myself. But I knew I had to wait.

"That lab you blew up was behind it. They'd found a way to cut down the rates of stillbirths in pokémon and humans by something like sixty-seven per cent. But they got rejected by the government to produce it. Apparently there was no profit in it. So they spiked the water streams with it. A few people died from overdoses, but a lot of people were only affected a little. And now they're less likely to lose children late on in pregnancies."

I was amazed it was that. I'd always thought it had something to do with what I'd seen in the future.

What the celebi had made me see.

Suddenly, there was like a little light at the back of my brain. If it had made me see that, if it had influenced my decisions towards certain things… what if it had made me think those outbreaks were going to cause the end of the world?

"They were doing good," I whispered. "Helping people, even though a few people died in the process."

The celebi rolled its eyes. "Helping people, sure. Hindering us." I was confused. I looked up at it and caught the traces of a plotting smirk. "Ever actually wondered where you really came from? If you're not from the future?"

I hadn't. I'd barely even started to believe that myself. "Where?"

It smiled. "There's an average of about twenty-six thousand stillbirths each year from one continent alone. People don't miss what they think is dead."

My hands leapt to feel my pulse. "You steal dead children?"

"Why not?" It shrugged. "It's not like anyone will miss them. We still the dead babies, place them in the water of life, then slowly, they come back to life. We tamper with their minds, put into them what we need.

"Why else do you think we made you blow up the lab?"

"What."

"It's true," it said with a smile. "They were getting rid of so many of our potential projects. There's seventeen different types of pokémon. Darks are some of the rarest. We need dark adapted children for the project. Anything else and their minds are too weak, the psychic influence renders them brain dead. But because dark pokémon are immune to psychics, they make the adapted humans more resilient. It means we can go in with the force of a hammer, rather than a feather. There's maybe four or five of you that we can get each year. That lab was going to make that maybe two, at most." It scowled and snapped the flute it held in two. "We couldn't risk it. So that's where you came along. Make you think it needed destroying. Kill your pet, make you want revenge. Tell you how to get it and watch the fireworks go off!"

I tried to shut out what it was saying. I needed a way to attach myself to reality. Just something that would let me know it was lying. Because it _had_ to be.

"I didn't think the lab was a threat!" I exclaimed, suddenly hopeful. "It was Adryan! He came to me and told me that something about it was going wrong!"

The pokémon smiled at me. "And how did he figure this out?"

I bit my lip. He'd told me it was information from his dad. But then I'd found out he'd been looking to the future. Either one was equally likely, though somehow, I knew which one of them was the actual truth. "He was looking into the future."

"Precisely!" the celebi laughed shamelessly. "Do you think we've only just started this gig? We're good at what we do, little soldier. Sure, the memories we gave you might not have been enough to make you act like an _actual_ soldier, but we have other skills. You shared your memories with that friend of yours. Do you really think we'd let that go by unnoticed?"

I suddenly felt like I'd let Ayd into a world of trouble that I really didn't want him to be in. I had to escape and let him know.

"There's a little thing we put into your memories. Like a virus, but better. If you ever shared your memories with anyone, it would activate in their brain." It pointed to its head and mimed an explosion. "It makes them unable to think of anything but uncovering the truth. They have to find out everything they can about the future, so we feed them exactly what we want them to know. And eventually, it kills them."

So everything was a lie. The thing had been meticulous in everything it had done.

"So Adryan's dying for nothing?" I asked it.

"He's not dying," it said with a grin. "He's already dead."

I felt like someone had taken a demolition crew to my already shattered existence. There was this massive pain inside, then just nothing. It flickered between the two, hurting more every time the emotions drained away.

He was dead. All for nothing. All for the twisted schemes of a time travelling death seeker.

It snorted at me. "You honestly thought we hadn't planned any of this out? Anyone who got too close to the truth ended up dead. That's how it's always been. You're dead by the time we get you; we make sure you don't cause any trouble more than we want you to. You haven't understood it this entire time. We go back and make the tiniest of changes hundreds of years ago to change one thing in the future. You honestly thought we'd overlook the damage we can cause here?"

It lifted up a hand and started counting down on its fingers. "Where do I start? Well, you're sterile, so even if you do survive today, you'll never have kiddies that should never exist. You'll slowly go insane as everything we put in your brain slowly breaks down. Oh and you've also got that great big tumour on your brain too! And that wasn't even us!"

I flinched back from it. "Who was it then?"

It laughed and threw its hands up. "Mewtwo. Who else? He wanted to make sure that there was no chance of you causing any unwanted damage. You were never meant to exist. We're just making sure you do exactly what nature intended and died."

I stared at the floor. I couldn't find anything to say. My brain throbbed and so did my kidneys. My brain ever since that time in the Cluster and my kidneys since the first weird dream I had.

"And there's the last bit!" the celebi said. "You know how you originally died in the womb? Your kidneys were no good. They failed, you died. We brought you back to life, but the effects aren't permanent. Then a little nudge here and there, then suddenly you find yourself addicted to a horrible drug that's designed for poisonous pokémon. And that only makes your kidney problems worse." It teleported in front of me and sat on the floor, staring up with wide, grinning eyes. "And this is before we even get onto those magical dreams you've been having."

I glared down at it. "And what are they about then?"

It smirked. "Your memories aren't real. They've been forced in there, over reality. Slowly, the walls inside your brain are coming down. You see, we never actually know when we're going to need you. So those memories your brain creates? We put blocks on them, so to speak. You only experience certain things once you've hit a certain age. Now you're free, so are those blocks in your brain. Everything's mixing around in there, becoming one big pool of imagination and reality.

"Those dreams are just you experiencing what you would have, were you still waiting for your purpose. And then occasionally, they blur with reality, which is why you saw your beloved lizard in one. You might survive today. You might find a way around the kidney failure. Maybe even the tumour. But eventually, reality's going to merge with fantasy. You won't know what time you're living in. Eventually it'll get so bad you'll be catatonic, reduced to having your brain being in both worlds at once."

I tried to glare at it, though my ears were burning with tears. "Why do you hate me so much?"

It laughed. "Hate you?" It sighed and shook its head. "Honestly? Far from it. You're the best damn tool I've ever had. It's just that you were meant to die. It's nearly eighteen years overdue now. We taught you everything you know, like it or not."

It was true, they had, in a way, taught me everything that I knew. I wouldn't have been able to survive, if it weren't for them.

They also taught me the best ways to kill certain pokémon.

And one of those just happened to be staring me in the face.

"So what do you say?" it asked. "Ready to die?"

I sighed. "Sure."

Then I ripped the antennae from its head.

It swore in languages I never knew existed as it floated into the sky, hands gripping its bleeding head. My pokémon were all suddenly free and they looked around, bewildered at what had happened.

I smirked, dropped the antennae and crushed them under my foot. "You did teach me everything I needed to know. Including how to kill a celebi."

Its eyes widened. "But we never-!" It swore. "Mewtwo! It had to be! Or the pinks! They must have interfered!"

"It's funny, isn't it? How terrifying the world feels when you realise someone set you up to die?" I grinned at it. "Not so confident now, are you?"

It glared at me. "I'll show you confidence."

There was a flash of light that made me see nothing but white. I heard sounds nearby me. I couldn't tell what they were. I couldn't even see what they were. I groped around blindly, searching for anything. I scrunched my eyes shut, rubbed them furiously and tried to see what I could. Everything slowly came back into focus, colours bland but sight nonetheless. I could see once more.

The only problem was that I couldn't see Alistair.

"One by one, your pokémon vanish through time," the celebi said to me. "Not so confident now, are you? Take away the slaves and suddenly the master is exposed. How does it feel? To know that your pokémon are going to suffer in some horrible place in time, cursing having ever met you?"

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood. "Screw you," I growled at it. "Screw you and your insane plans. If you want to kill me, just do it! Stop fucking around with my pokémon and get this whole thing over and done with!"

It shook its head. "You really don't get it, do you? How often do you think I really get to do this? To raise something, bring it into this world and then destroy it? There's no feeling quite like it. Bringing down your pokémon one by one just makes victory all the sweeter." It landed on my head and whispered into my ear, "And yours is a death I will relish."

Then it tore my ear off.

I screamed and grabbed the bleeding stump just as my pokémon went to attack it. It teleported out of the way, appeared some distance from us and waved my severed ear like a trophy. "Poor little human, so lost to everything," it said into my removed ear. "I'll break you, little by little until there's nothing left but eyeballs and scraps."

Everything was throbbing. I pressed my hands as hard as I could onto the wound, trying in vain to stop it bleeding. Nothing was working. I pressed my hand gently across my head, trying to figure out just how far it had gone.

Loki snarled at the celebi. He burst into shadows and appeared above it, claws dripping little black tears. The celebi sighed, teleported out of the way and grabbed him from behind. He squeaked, spun around in the air and sliced at its face. The celebi recoiled as he vanished into his shadow once more.

Erra blinded the celebi as Loki appeared above it again, carrying Lacey. He dropped her onto it and cackled as she carved a thick line out of its face. It screamed and fell back just as Erra shot a bolt of electricity into the wound.

It snarled, gestured and all of a sudden, the weeds in the building came alive. The stretched to impossible lengths, grabbing and slicing at anything and everything they could find. Gemini stood near me, forcing little barriers to burst into existence. Every time something tried to hit her, she smirked and bit it off, growing a little bolder each time.

I'd collapsed to my knees. Nothing was stopping the bleeding. I needed to cauterise it. I had no fire on me. I called Loki back and tried to explain it all to him. He mumbled uncertainly, whispered something else and then fire burst into life on his fists. Another grunt, just to be certain I was sure, then he pressed it against my severed ear.

Any pain I had increased tenfold at that point. I lunged away from it with a scream, the smell of burning meat all around me. Loki gave me an apologetic look, vanished into the shadows and did it again. Once more he managed it until he decided enough was enough, then he lunged at the celebi, fists bleeding fire.

The celebi's eyes widened just before Loki drove his fists into them. It screamed, teleported away and let him drop to the floor. Lacey caught him just before he hit the ground and smirked as Erra chased after the blinded thing, zapping it with little bolts of lightning.

It vanished from view again. This time there was an unnatural stillness to the air. I was convinced we had to be in hell. Fighting this time devil had to be some form of eternal torture. Everything seemed to grow cold. It felt like the entire world had turned into an icy tundra.

There was a flash of green light.

Then I found myself staring at the face of an angry abomasnow.

The celebi was sat on its shoulder, fully healed. It glanced down at us and cackled. "Time travel is such _fun!_ This here is Berry. I don't think that's her actual name. But I call her Berry. She's an angry pokémon, is Berry. In fact, you remember everything I told you about how a decade seemed to make the pokémon all a lot more violent?" He patted it on the side. "This one here is the cause of it all. A few deaths here and there, then suddenly the world got a little unhappy. She's angry, she's killed before and I think it's rather poetic that she's the one that kills you."

It laughed and slapped the abomasnow in the face. "Berry, get!"

Then hell seemed to freeze over.

The thing roared with enough force to send Erra flying back through the air. I cursed and pressed a hand to my badly treated ear. "Loki, fire! Erra, paralyze!"

The thing swung a meaty fist and caught Lacey in the side. She screamed, flew through the air and hit a nearby wall. She landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom, shook her head and only just rolled out of the way of another icy punch. She swore at it and slashed its back, fingers dripping thick, purple venom.

The abomasnow shouted and lunged for her. She leapt away, sprung off the wall and sailed over its head. It turned, eyes narrowed and blew a blizzard straight at her. The force sent her into another wall, frozen solid. It roared at her just as Loki appeared from beneath it and punched the thing between the legs with a fiery fist.

Its eyes widened and a little tear slipped out and froze on its cheek. There was silence for a long second.

Then it screamed vengeance.

Loki ran between its legs, desperately trying to avoid being crushed. The thing hissed as Erra shot electricity at it, batting the bolts away with a lazy hand. Loki leapt into his shadow, appeared in the thing's face and punched it again. It crossed its eyes at him, glared and swallowed him whole.

"Oh fuck," I whispered. "Get him out of there!"

Gemini bounced forwards, eyes glowing. The thing roared, clutching its head in pain. Erra leapt at it, biting its stomach, splashing its white fur red with blood. Out of nowhere, we heard Loki cackle.

He was stood atop Lacey, fists burning and defrosting her. He winked as soon as she was free, leapt into the shadows and appeared in the thing's face once more. This time his eyes gleamed. The abomasnow looked back into his eyes. Its eyes crossed and turned purple.

For a moment, everything was calm.

Then it roared again and went on a rampage.

I swore and ran out of the way as it stormed past me. Loki chased after it, popping in and out of shadows, punching and kicking its ankles. Gemini knocked it backwards with an ethereal barrier, right into the staircase the celebi was watching from. It popped into nothing and appeared further up, this time with a little bag of popcorn.

"Oh hell," I muttered as the abomasnow's eyes cleared. It glowered down at everything, took one big breath and blew out a beam of ice that froze the floor solid. It stomped down on the ice, picked up the largest slab it could and flung it at straight at Lacey and I.

Another barrier appeared out of nowhere. It seemed to bend with the strain of keeping the ice away from us. Finally it broke, just as Lacey grabbed me and pulled us both out of the way.

The thing roared again and aimed another icy beam, this time at the celebi. It teleported away, landed atop the abomasnow, then suddenly they both disappeared into nothing.

It was still cold enough in the building to see my breath, yet slowly, the heat was returning once more. The celebi appeared in front of us again, grinning and surveying the damage.

"Well, she's a little pissed. Don't worry though, she's not coming back; she's got an appointment scarring a couple of kids for life. As for me, I'm just scarring you for what remains of your life."

It made a motion, almost like it was checking a watch for the time. "And now I think it's time for another step towards breaking you."

It vanished again. Lacey hissed as it appeared behind her. She slashed at it and caught it in the eye just as the both vanished completely.

I searched the empty air desperately for them both. Half my hearing felt like it was coming from the other side of a wall. I couldn't trust it enough. There was a shriek and a flash of light from behind me. I spun around to find the celebi once more, wings broken and covered in a number of deep wounds.

It shook its head and swore. "That didn't go as planned."

I was going to ask what it was talking about when the shadows behind it moved. I caught sight of a pair of yellow eyes before Lacey appeared behind it and tore its wings clean off. It shrieked, flailing in the air uselessly as she landed.

She smirked, threw them to the floor and made a gesture at the pokémon. It glared at her and moved into attack.

Just as it did, something flashed behind it. There was an almighty snapping sound then concrete shattered as the celebi crashed through it.

It pushed itself up on shaking arms as the shadow moved towards it and kicked it clean across the room.

When the shadow came into the light, my jaw dropped.

It was instantly obvious how much more muscular he was. More scars covered him and he seemed to carry the weight of extremely hard battles with him.

Yet undeniably, it was Alistair.

He teleported in front of the celebi and sliced at its face. The thing cursed, teleported above him and kicked him in the head. He took the blow, spun with it and punched it in the back of the head. It spun backwards in the air, caught itself in an invisible net and glared down at Alistair. The air went cold again as a little orange light formed in its mouth.

"You're alive," I whispered, dumbfounded.

He turned his head the tiniest fraction and winked. _[I am not the only one, sir.]_

The hairs on my arms stood up. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Time stood still.

Then a _colossal _orange beam of energy hammered into the celebi. It screamed and was punched straight through the wall of the old building.

My eyes and mouth were both wide open. I felt a breeze behind me, heard the sound of flapping wings. I turned my head to see just what had come to my rescue.

I found myself staring up at a huge orange dragon. Covered in small scars, thick, blue leathery wings and a bright blue flame burning atop its tail.

Even without glancing at the tell-tale wound above its hip, I knew just who it was.

"S-Scar?" I breathed, shocked. There was a long moment as he turned his head slowly to face me. He glared down at me with newer, older eyes. A cloud of acrid smoke belched out of his nostrils. He roared and covered me with blindingly hot breath that stunk of rotting meat.

Then he snorted and licked my head.

I flinched back then burst out laughing. "You insane old lizard," I said as I hugged his long neck. "How the hell are you even still alive?"

He growled something I couldn't understand. Alistair teleported beside him and smirked.

_[The celebi is arrogant, sir. It thought by dropping us off in the past, we would be left to die. We survived for a number of years. Then when it appeared carrying Lacey, she injured it enough for us to ambush it. You see sir, it dropped both myself and Scar at the same place. We deduced it would do the same if it captured someone else.]_

"Well isn't that cute?"

The walls of the building started to shake. My eyes shot to each and every corner, watching the dust and rubble falling, concerned as to whether or not it would stay upright. The massive holes in the floor and walls said it wouldn't last long.

The celebi floated back through the most recent hole, shining green. Its eyes leaking streams of bright blue psychic power.

"Play time is _over!_ You've attacked the wrong pokémon now. I travel through time. Anything I want, no matter when it happened, I can have. You've _fucked_ with time now!

"And time wants you _dead!_"

It flashed green.

Then a flock of aerodactyl tore through the ceiling. The floor rumbled and ancient pokémon crawled out from underneath, hissing and snarling all the while.

The celebi smiled. "Say goodbye to the life you should never have known."

It gestured with a hand.

And then a shotgun blast tore through the air.

A headless kabutops collapsed to the floor, bleeding violently from its shredded neck.

Behind it, a familiar figure smiled and pumped the shotgun. She grinned and tipped the brim of her trilby hat to the celebi. "After you say goodbye to your entire existence."


	58. And Time Did Fall

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**And Time Did Fall**

* * *

_Life lives, life dies. Life laughs, life cries. Life gives up and life tries. But life looks different through everyone's eyes _~ Anon.

**-O-O-O-**

"_One by one, the powerful shall fall."_

- Anon. _(Unknown date)._

**-O-O-O-**

The air was heavy with silence and the smell of gunpowder.

The celebi made a gesture and the pokémon it summoned remained still. The headless body of the kabutops bled onto the floor, staining the concrete crimson.

"Nice to see you made it back," said the celebi. "I was starting to think you were fleeing across the world."

She pulled her face into a squinting smile. "While you're still alive? I'm not that stupid."

It barked a laugh. "I beg to differ."

And just like that, chaos erupted once more.

Vines suddenly burst out of the ground around her. They sliced through a few of the ancient pokémon, cutting off limbs and faces. There was a colossal roar as the vines erupted from the walls, snatched aerodactyl in their grasps and suffocated them against the wooden framework.

The girl moved around the vines and leant behind a nearby column. "Not too late, am I?"

I glowered at her. "I'm missing an _ear_."

"I have burns covering twenty per cent of my body." She smiled quickly. "We're just started getting even here."

I heard the footsteps and reacted quickly. I grabbed her and pulled her out of the way just as a dinosaur charged into the pillar and smashed it into dust. The thing kept running, charged into a metallic beam beneath the pillar and stopped, huge head stuck between the metallic poles.

"Thanks," she said quickly, glancing back at it. She reached back and pulled a pistol free from her belt. "Here," she said, placing it in my hands. "Looks like you could do with the added help."

I checked to see if it was actually loaded first. "Nothing stronger?" I asked with a grin.

She rolled her eyes and fired the shotgun at the dinosaur's exposed back. Its body fell apart in pieces, legs still running without a body attached to them. "Like I'd trust you with that. How do we deal with our buddy up there?"

I glanced up at the celebi. It darted away from an irate Erra, spinning in between blasts of lightning. Scar leapt down from the roof, breathing white-hot flames down upon the creature. It teleported away from the blast, appeared on his head and steered him into the ceiling, freeing an aerodactyl and angering a few more.

"One shot," I said reflexively. I remembered first seeing the creature so clearly; the information that came to me without pause. Knowing that it came from an outside source just made the knowledge all that sweeter. "Take out its ability to time travel and live all in one."

She glanced back, drew her head in as a vine shot past her and breathed a quick, relieved sigh. "So blast its head off?"

"If you want to overdo it." The building shook with the weight of an impact somewhere around us. Loki appeared out of the shadows in front of us, pointed to the ceiling wildly and then vanished once more. I followed his gestures and watched as the entire roof seemed to sway and buckle. "This place isn't going to last long. We need to get out of here. But there's nothing but forests all around us."

"Only in one direction," the girl said with a shake of her head. "There's a quarry about a kilometre south of here."

"We'll go there then," I decided. "Alistair!"

He appeared nearby almost instantly. He crouched down, checked my injured ear and frowned.

_[I cannot heal that for you, sir.]_

That was like a blow enough, but I forced myself past it. "Not about that. We need to get out of here. The building's going to collapse. Can you let the others know at once that we need to retreat?"

He pulled a face. _[I cannot. I can, however, enlist the aid of the girafarig and do so with her help.]_

"Do that then," I said quickly. "We're retreating as of five minutes ago."

He nodded and disappeared with a flash of light. I grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her after me. "Come on!"

She didn't need much convincing. She lead us back towards the doors, sounds of battle continually attacking our ears from behind.

I ducked under a wayward blast of fire and had to leap over a number of outstretched vines. There was a rumbling in the floor not three paces away. We stopped just before it as a cradily burst out of the ground, screaming bloody murder, vines snaking around it.

I shot it in the face.

It fell backwards, screaming slightly, not fully dead. I ran past it, uncaring towards its plight. Freedom was the only thing I cared about.

Sunlight blared in my eyes as we reached the outside. There was the distant smell of trees and grass. Sounds of pidgey and taillow chirping in the trees were suddenly louder than ever. All the little things about the world I thought I'd never get to experience again.

Then the sun was blotted out by a draconic shadow.

The aerodactyl soared down in front of us, opened its mouth in a scream that showed off all its teeth and filled the air with the stench of death.

The girl hissed and pumped her shotgun. The dragon growled, dropped back into the air and belched green flames at us both. I rolled out of the way, aimed and tried to shoot the thing in the face. It soared above the bullet, shrieked at us both and pulled both wings back. It snapped them forwards and made little blades of air that tore the ground open, the earth bleeding mud from its gaping wounds.

We were trapped by it. I could hear more of the creatures coming after us, circling around and calculating our doom.

There was a mighty roar and a blur of flaming orange tackled into the aerodactyl. It screamed, plummeted towards the ground and created a trench with its body. In the air, Scar snorted, spun around and roared at everything else. He took a breath and fire exploded from his mouth. A little fireball zoomed from him and shattered the earth as it hit, sending pokémon and rock flying everywhere. He smirked, flapped his wings and soared into battle again, wings and tail shining like steel.

"Let's move!" the girl hissed, grabbing my hand. She led me further away from the building, towards the quarry she'd pointed out. The trees blurred into an unholy mesh of brown and green. I could see them moving slightly, inching towards us, branches trying to snare us in their grasp.

I heard the girl's warning a little too late.

My feet carried on moving without any ground underneath them. One minute I was upright, the next I was rolling down a gravelly mountain. I landed what felt like seconds later, bruised, scratched and bloody, yet still somehow alive.

"Damn," she muttered as she stood back up. She brushed herself down, glared up at the hill of stone and frowned. "Nice going, klutz. Did you never realise you need ground to run on?"

"Did you not realise running towards a hill might end badly?"

_[Do you both not realise we're being hunted?]_

I spun around at Gemini's mental voice. I found her stood behind us, cut and looking worse for wear, but still alive. Alistair teleported in with Erra and Lacey seconds later, with Loki appearing from a shadow just after them. Scar roared up ahead, smacked an aerodactyl with his tail and shattered the creature's neck. He planted his feet down on it and rode it into the ground, snorting acrid smoke at the destruction he caused.

"It'll keep hunting us," the girl said. "We need to kill it. Who knows how long it'll stay dead for, but even a year would be a nice rest."

I glanced at her. "And you know this all because?"

She smiled. "You're not the only one that had a meeting with our friend. I thought I'd managed to escape after it told me everything; told myself I was lucky. Then little things made me realise that maybe it had let that happen. Whispers in the back of my mind. Then I met you in Lilycove and realised it was probably just setting us up to take us both out at once. So I planned an ambush for it."

"Some ambush. I lost an ear!"

She rolled her eyes. "Carry on complaining and I'll take your other one. Where _is_ he?"

"Where's who?"

I found my answer as a flash of light appeared next to her. A massive venusaur landed on the floor, growling at something we couldn't see. Atop it was a little spoink, snorting weakly and looking exhausted.

"Good job," she said and recalled the little psychic. She glanced at me and rolled her eyes. "You think they never let me near the pokémon in that gym? A few of them were still alive; no harm in saving them and keeping them for myself."

I said nothing. It wasn't the time. There was a long silence.

Then the aerodactyl beneath Scar shrieked.

He hissed, stomped on its head and splattered the ground with blood. He growled at its body, pulled his foot up and satisfied with his work, smiled a little.

Then a flock of them descended from above. One or two seemed different, not aerodactyls; feathery and like ancient birds. They shrieked all the same, claws and sharp-tooth filled jaws striking for us all.

Scar roared and took to the skies once more. He dove into the middle of them all, wings shining silver and fire bursting out of his mouth. One or two fell instantly. The others screamed and tried to leap in for the attack.

Erra flitted above him, zapping stragglers with lightning bolts. Scar spun in mid-air, smirked at her then grabbed a feathery one by the neck and threw it into the others. Erra split into ten, circling around them all and shooting bolts of lightning that leapt from pokémon to pokémon.

All of a sudden, it seemed like the lights to the world went out. The only light was from Erra's attacked or Scar's flames. There was an unnatural cold to the air that floated down, but my breath didn't frost. Everything just felt _wrong_.

One of Erra's lightning bolts lit up the sky. All around us were coffins, floating in the eerie dark. They shone gold in the brief sparks of light; ancient designs coating them with unnatural beauty.

And with a moan, each of them sprouted ghostly arms. Red eyes burst into life from within, glaring down at us all.

Lacey snarled and appeared behind me, slicing one in the face. I recoiled, grabbed my gun and tried to fight off what I could. It was no use. They were ghosts. There was nothing I could do against them. Lacey hissed and melted into the shadows again. She appeared behind one, kicked it and splintered the entire coffin. The thing cackled maniacally as purple flames poured out of the coffin and covered her. She hissed, scowled at the burns and continued to attack the coffin, pulling it apart.

Loki appeared atop one, claws bleeding black and drove them into the thing's face. It hissed, grabbed him with ethereal arms and threw him into the air. An aerodactyl grabbed him in its mouth, shook him like a ragdoll and spat him back into the ground. Scar landed atop the ancient dragon, drove his claws through its head and threw it into the ghostly coffin.

The girl was screaming orders somewhere nearby. The brief flashes of light illuminated a hulking scorpion that fought for her. It drove its tail into a coffin and thick, purple venom poured out of its tail and flowed out of the empty tomb.

Slowly the unearthly ghosts were being beaten back. Then in the middle of the clearing, a hot flash of light washed over the air. I barely clamped my eyes shut in time. Even when I opened them again, I still felt blind.

Flying in the middle of everything was a huge moth. Fire dripped from its wings, setting alight to the stony ground beneath it.

The girl hissed and directed a dustox towards it. The larger moth glanced at the smaller.

And the dustox burst into flames.

The girl sighed as the ashes of her pokémon floated away on the wind. She motioned for her scorpion to keep attacking the coffins. Lacey and Loki were helping it, slicing apart the ghostly enemies. Her venusaur was snatching fliers from the sky, flinging them into others and restraining some for Erra or Scar to attack.

She grabbed a pistol from her belt and fired at the thing. It fluttered away and spat flames back at her. She barely managed to leap out of the way as they bathed the rock behind her, melting it onto the floor.

She glanced at me, pale and worried. "Any ideas?"

Alistair leapt at the moth and brought bladed elbows down on its face. It spun away from the blows and tackled him in the back. He took the blow, spun with it, grabbed the thing by a few wings and threw it towards the floor. It shrieked, fanned its wings quickly and blew fire in every direction. He leapt away as Gemini formed a brilliant yellow barrier around the thing. Another was added, then another. Finally the thing was encased in a box of yellow energy, firestorms raging within.

Gemini wittered and sunk to her knees under the strain. Alistair brought both his blades together, sparks flying. He rubbed them together furiously, the sounds of scraping bone filling the air. Finally they gleamed with incomparable sharpness. He leapt at the moth as Gemini lowered the barriers and sliced two wings and a leg off the thing. It shrieked, took to the air, wobbling all the while and covered him in sticky string. He frowned at it, sliced manically at it and tried to free himself. The thing chittered and all of a sudden, the string burst into flames.

Alistair teleported away quickly. The thing focused on Gemini, wings beating fire as suddenly Alistair appeared above it, singed and angry. He landed on its back, pulled back its head and speared it in the face with a blade.

"Ideally that," I said to the girl. She frowned as the thing carried on fighting. Behind her another ghost collapsed to the floor and another aerodactyl plummeted from the sky. "I don't like this," she said quickly. She spun around at the newly grounded aerodactyl and shot it in the face. She cursed, reloaded her shotgun and quickly aimed at another creature. "Where's their ringleader? He's pulling these things out of their times to die; he's gotta be sat around her somewhere, waiting."

The thought had crossed my mind. I tried to pay it no attention. I glanced around at the battles around us. We were winning, but only by a margin. I levelled my hand and fired at the moth. The bullet tore through one of its wings. Screeching angry curses, it spun around, wings whipping up silvery winds. I ducked behind a pile of stone as it sheared the air around me, slicing through stone and the top of my hair.

The girl ducked behind the stone next to me, glanced over the top and came back down laughing. "You're bald atop your head."

"Thank you," I growled, checked the pistol and tried to fire at the thing again. A cradily burst out of the ground near it, snarling violently, vines thrashing everywhere. One grabbed Alistair and smashed him down into the rocky floor. He hissed, grabbed the vines and teleported away, severing them from the body.

Loki bounced up to it, fists dripping flames once more. He drove them into the ancient pokémon's face, dug his clawed feet into its neck and sliced violently at its spine. The thing opened its mouth to scream and he reached in, grabbed its tongue and ran away as quickly as he could. The cradily screamed in pain, pulled back against him for only a second before he tore its tongue clean from its mouth.

It stopped screaming a second after her venusaur sliced it in half with a vine. It remained in place, slapping things away with its vines, charging power all the while.

"She's cursing," the girl explained quickly. "It's the strategy honed into her. It slows her but ups her defences and attacks. So she remains put, batters things with her vines or just absorbs all the energy she needs. Nothing much can get past her."

That was when a kabutops leapt at it and sliced off a few vines. The venusaur hissed, rose up and collapsed back down upon the pokémon. It squealed under the new weight, flailed uselessly and before my eyes began to dry out. Its very skin seemed to collapse on itself, leaving the thing just a wrinkly sack of bones as the venusaur's injuries healed over.

"Remind me not to get on her bad side," I said with a shudder. I glanced up and counted at least seven ancient fliers circling around my pokémon. One screamed, sensing weakness and tore into Erra. I saw a little wing drift away from her body, blood spurt from the wound and was nearly blinded by the lightning she shot off. The thunderclap that followed almost deafened me, then she landed atop the thing and did something that made it collapse into the ground as quickly as a falling rhydon.

"This is taking too long," I said. "The celebi's tiring us out. It can heal itself as much as it likes, while we're forced to fight until we're exhausted."

The girl pulled free a knife and sliced at a cradily's snaking vine. The thing hissed and pulled it back just as her scorpion came charging past us, tail dripping venom. It leapt over us, landed on the pokémon and drove its tail straight through the thing's body. Another of the dinosaurs charged at it; the scorpion curled up into a ball, took the blow and tripped the charging dinosaur over. As it fell, the scorpion leapt upon it, salivating jaws ripping into the thing's exposed neck.

"What's your plan then?" she asked as if nothing life-threatening were even happening.

I glanced back up at the fliers. "How many shotgun shells you got left?"

I heard her count them as quickly as she could. "Ten. Why?"

Erra flitted away from the remains of one of the things. Alistair grabbed her, hands glowing blue and the bleeding from her side stopped. Above them, Scar roared another challenge. He grabbed one of the birds by the neck and bit into it, spraying the ground below with red-hot blood.

That left five.

"Give me six," I told her.

She grumbled as she pulled the cartridges out of her pocket. "You can't fire them with your gun. What are you planning?"

I glanced over the rock and called Alistair over. He nodded and let Erra go before he vanished. Another ancient creature was charging, this one aiming for Lacey. She was busy fighting off a kabutops, meeting sickled blades with her own razor-sharp leaves. Little bits of green were floating to the floor, but she managed to dodge most of the blows and hit the creature as hard as she could.

I aimed and by some miracle managed to hit the charging pokémon in the eye. It screamed, veered off course and slammed straight into the kabutops. Lacey glanced around, eyes wide until she saw me. She smirked, nodded and descended on them both, a flurry of leaves and blood-thirst.

Alistair was panting for breath. I grimaced and wondered just how long it'd be before we were all too tired to fight. I spread my hands and showed him the shotgun shells. "Do you think you can attach these to the fliers? The five ancient ones and the moth."

He glanced around, took note of their positions and nodded. _[I shall do my best, sir.]_ He swiped them from my hands and disappeared in a flash of light.

I looked up and saw him land atop one of the aerodactyl. It shrieked, spun around in the air and tried to throw him off. He held his ground, punched it in the back of the head and vanished into the air once more.

"Scar!" I screamed into the heavens. "Aim for what Alistair's attaching to them!"

He roared in acknowledgement. He smacked an ancient bird away with his tail, spread his wings and took off even higher into the sky. He caught sight of the first of Alistair's traps, spun around in the air and bathed the creature in flames. It screamed and a second later, the shell in the back of its neck exploded. Flesh and blood rained down from the heavens.

Scar's mouth seemed to drop. Then instantly he recovered, smirked and took off towards the next victim.

Gemini teleported out of the way of the falling bodies. She appeared near me, panting, bruised and bleeding in a number of places. _[This is ridiculous,]_ she growled, mental voice exhausted too. _[We're wearing ourselves out. When we're weak, it will attack.]_

"I know," I said grimly. "But it'll probably only show itself when it looks like we're winning."

It was then that I heard a scream and something wet and warm splattered against my face.

Gemini swayed on the spot. A kabutops stood above her, claws gleaming blood.

And on the floor was one of her heads.

The little head carried on biting at nothing, hissing and screaming all the while. Gemini fell backwards, unbalanced and screaming blue murder. Her eyes bled blew and the kabutops only twitched before its arms were ripped from its sockets with unholy power. It screamed for only a second before its own sickles sliced its throat out.

_[I was… stupid,]_ Gemini said weakly. There was a gaping hole in her speech. Where I felt the subtle influence before, the thing always influencing me, there was nothing. There were no undertones for me to sleep. Nothing screaming hunger or fear. Gemini tried to pull herself back to her feet, but lacked to coordination. She was like a new born foal. She fell back down and looked at me weakly. _[Should I feel something? I cannot feel fear, anger or sadness. Just pain.]_

She groaned and collapsed against the floor. Blood still poured out of where her second head should have been. I grabbed it and tried stupidly to reattach the thing. I screamed for Alistair to come and help.

He appeared seconds later, hands bloody and with a set of yellow eyes hanging from his claws. His own eyes widened as he took in the situation. He crouched down, eyes shining blue until finally they dimmed.

_[There is nothing I can do, sir.]_

I dropped the severed head and collapsed to the floor. "She's… dead?"

He frowned. _[I cannot tell. I cannot reattach the second head. Whether or not she can survive without it… I am unsure.]_

I fumbled for her poké ball and managed to recall her. I aimed it at her severed head, but the laser wouldn't activate. It just screeched metallic noises at me and refused to take in the dead limb.

I crawled over to the dead kabutops, snarled at it and kicked it in its dead head. I hung the gun from my belt and picked up the severed blades. They were heavier than I would have thought. It took more than a moment to adjust to them. Finally I threw away one and grabbed the other in both hands.

"Alistair… take me to something soft and squishy."

The world vanished in a blur of blue. Almost instantly it appeared again, burning a fiery red. The heat was beyond what I'd ever felt. The huge moth fluttered in front of me, spitting out flames at the girl's venusaur.

I raised the blade and brought it down on the thing's back. It screamed as red-hot blood poured out. It landed on my skin, hissed and burnt little holes in my flesh. I ignored all the pain. I brought the blade up again just as it spun around and sliced it across the face. Its flesh and both its eyes fell apart, burning blood pouring into the wounds and instantly cauterising them.

The thing screamed and the entire world burned hotter than I thought possible. I smelt burning hair just before all the heat vanished and everything was suddenly unnaturally cold. Everything around me changed. Shadows loomed over the landscape and a hill of stone stood between me and the angry, buzzing moth.

Loki leapt up, grabbed at my face and garbled nonsense, head twitching violently. Finally satisfied, he patted my head, disappeared into the shadows and came back a second later, the other kabutops blade gripped in his hands.

He looked like a child trying to dress as the grim reaper for Halloween.

He growled, slung the blade back over his shoulder, nearly fell over with the weight of it and smirked. He disappeared again, came out of the shadows behind an omastar and started hacking away madly, cackling all the while.

Scar landed with an earth-trembling thud behind me. He sniffed me, snorted and then nodded towards the moth. It was fluttering on the floor, screeching wildly and shook with frequent spasms. My charizard smirked, laughed and roared something that felt like _well done_ before he leapt at the dying thing and bit its face off.

"What now?" the girl asked me.

I spun around, surprised she was behind me. She smiled and wiped a thick coating of slime from her arm. By her side was a thick, oozing muk, snarling violently at the carnage around it. She nodded at it and it slithered across the landscape faster than should have been possible for moving slime. It leapt upon an omastar, covered it entirely and began to dissolve the unfortunate thing from the outside in.

"I'm out of pokémon," she told me. "That muk was the final reserve. Now they're all out and we're running desperately thin on the energy front."

I nodded and glanced over to my pokémon. Erra latched onto a kabutops' back and filled it with a thousand volts before taking off and doing the same to another. Lacey leapt at each one in between, taking apart their paralyzed bodies. I felt good about it. I wanted them all to suffer. Gemini may have been an annoyance most of the time, but she was still an ally.

If she was even still alive.

I held her poké ball for a moment and forced myself to clear my head. I couldn't afford to think about things like that. She was dead or she wasn't. That's all there was to it.

She glanced around the pile of stone and breathed a sigh. What remained of an armaldo shot past the hill and splattered against the floor some distance away. Her scorpion scuttled after it, chased by Loki and his makeshift scythe.

"That's the last of them," she said and fell back against the hill. "Wanna take bets on what comes after us next?"

I was expecting another apocalypse to start right then.

Instead there was silence.

It spread all around us, infecting the entire area until it felt like my pulse was the only noise in the whole world.

The roar that broke the silence was enough to make my eardrums pop.

Footsteps made the entire quarry shake. Little bits of rock from atop the hills scattered downwards, peppering the landscape. Out of nowhere a sandstorm began to swirl, scratching and biting at my skin. I hissed and pulled my shirt up over my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth. The sand still tried to cling to my eyes, taking every opportunity it could to invade them.

With another ear-shattering roar, the tyranitar revealed itself.

My heart stopped and sped up all in the same second. Pain shot through my chest and I was fairly certain I was having a heart attack. The girl's scorpion froze in place at the sight of it, scuttled back a distance and tried to scare it away with hisses and bravado. The tyranitar snarled and stomped on the floor. The scorpion screamed as a spiked rock exploded out of the floor and into its stomach. Purple, acidic ooze leaked out of it and bubbled against the angry earth.

The girl cursed and recalled it as quickly as she could. Loki leapt away from the beast, brandishing his new weapon. The thing glared and moved to stomp the ground again. Loki yelped and dove into the shadows just as a stalagmite shattered his toy and where he was standing.

"I don't suppose we can kill this with shotgun shells, huh?" the girl asked me.

I gulped. "If we can, that's news to me."

The beast turned to face us, eyes narrowing. The sandstorm whirled around us, coating the landscape in a swirling haze of beige. I had to squint to try and see the thing properly. It was like a looming shadow hidden beneath a veil. I was terrified into not moving. I couldn't move, or it would kill me. I couldn't stay put, or it would kill me.

Just as it seemed like certain death had come, there was a distant humming in the sandstorm. It started off small, far enough away that I didn't recognise it. Then all of a sudden a shadow exploded out of the sand, cut through the veil with a muscular tail and shattered one of the tyranitar's arms.

The harsh beating of wings was like music to my ears. The sand scattered away from the creature, revealing it standing guard in all its glory.

The flygon twitched.

It was the only movement it made before suddenly it had barreld into the tyranitar. The beast fell back with the blow, roaring violently as the flygon breathed green flames in its face. Its claws dug under the beast's scaly hide and ripped away tender flesh beneath, wings beating in tandem with each scream.

The girl looked like she was about to faint. I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to either. She pressed a hand over her heart and burst into nervous laughter. "That… that's just too impossible to be true."

"Yeah," I said reflexively. I had no idea where a _flygon_ of all things would have come from.

It took a moment to realise just where it had come from.

"I know that flygon!" I shouted, pointing wildly at it. It had to be her! Adryan's starter! If she was there, it meant that he had to be alive! The celebi had to have been lying!

The air grew cold as the shadows seemed to bunch together. Black, liquid shadow seemed to coalesce into the form of a looming ghost with a haunting red eye. It floated there on the spot for a long moment before smiling just slightly.

"_Allow us to offer a hand,"_ Ripper said with a gentle voice.

I nearly burst out laughing. A little chuckle fell from my lips before I could stop it. "I _knew_ it had to be lying! You guys could have come a little faster! We've only had to fight a goddamn _army_ of ancient pokémon! Where the hell's Ayd?"

Ripper looked away. I felt sorrow punch me in the gut again. _"Master Adryan is no longer of the world. This is his final request, as it were."_

I fell backwards over myself. Hearing about Ayd's death from the celebi was one thing. I could have always assumed it was lying. But from Adryan's pokémon themselves? I couldn't question it.

He was dead.

Dead and gone.

Just like the celebi had told me.

"I…" I looked away from the ghost and found my remaining pokémon coming to find me. They were all looking worse for wear. Erra was missing a wing, Lacey had patches of hair that had been ripped out and a hand with missing leaves. A few of Loki's gemstones were cracked, Scar had a little tear in one of his wings and Alistair had a crack in his bladed helmet.

But most importantly, at least they were still alive.

"Is it just you two?" I asked Ripper.

The ghost floated backwards with a smile. _"Not quite."_

Irenui beat her wings and took to the sky. The tyranitar roared and picked itself off the ground, glaring bloody murder at her. From behind it there was a sharp squeal before a beam of ice struck it in the face. The tyranitar fell over, hit the floor with a loud thud and was a block of pure ice within two seconds. There was another squeal before something barrelled into the frozen pokémon and shattered it, throwing frozen blocks of tyranitar everywhere.

Above its frozen head, Adryan's castform did a little dance. His gardevoir appeared with a flash of blue light beside it, accompanied by the large form of his lapras. It moved awkwardly on the rocky floor, snarled at the ground and froze it over for something to actually move on. A tropius dropped down from the sky and form its back rolled off a large rock that contained his shuckle.

"Huh," the girl grunted in amusement. "The cavalry's really come by to save us, hasn't it?"

Behind us, Alistair screamed.

The celebi floated behind him, perfect calm on its face.

And in its hand was Alistair's severed arm.

"Well, this is nice," it said conversationally. "A bit sweet though. And you know what too many sweets give you?"

It speared Lacey with Alistair's arm.

"Heart failure."

I felt like I was experiencing that myself. I didn't know which one of my pokémon to go for first. Alistair was leaning on one knee, clutching the stump that was the remains of its arm. Lacey was face fist on the ground, twitching violently and with Alistair's missing arm blocking the hole in her chest.

I grabbed Alistair by the shoulders first. He was closest. He told me was fine and that it was 'but a flesh wound'. I snarled at him but said nothing of it. I was beside Lacey next, checking to see if she was even still alive. Blood was pooling all around her, staining her hair red. The celebi floated above us all, cackling madly.

I recalled Lacey and tried to do the same for Alistair.

_[I will still fight,]_ he told me. He glanced at his arm laying some paces away from him on the floor, heartbreak in his face. He closed his eyes, shook his head and instructed Scar to do what needed to be done.

Yet again the smell of burning flesh took to the air. Alistair winced and once it was over, held a glowing blue hand to what was left of his arm. He flexed his remaining limb, tested his weight and glowered up at the celebi.

"Aw, I've offended him," it cackled. "Should I be sorry? Should I beg for forgiveness? Should I-"

Adryan's castform cut it off by freezing it solid. Hale laughed at the frozen celebi block, reared backwards and went to strike it. Within the ice, the celebi's eyes shone blue. Hale stopped dead in his tracks, spasmed in the air and dropped like a log.

I was barely aware that the gardevoir was trying to tend to it as Ripper and Irenui both leapt at it. Ripper darted into the shadows and appeared behind the celebi. With a snarl he grabbed both of its arms, pulled in either direction and removed them from the creature. He escaped just as Irenui charged into the thing, landed on it and pushed it into the dirt. She roared, snapped down on its head and came away with half its face in her jaws.

The celebi took to the air again, skull exposed and bleeding. One of its eyes was hanging free from its socket. The other swivelled madly in every direction. A vine reached up and snatched its leg just as it went to escape. It glowered down at the venusaur. The muk slithered up behind it and threw up a cloud of poison over the thing.

The celebi screamed and writhed under all the pain. Blue filtered out from behind its skull, leaking into the air itself. The muk trembled with unseen force as the venusaur shrieked and was thrown clean across the clearing. With a final roar the muk exploded, covering everything nearby in fuming waste.

The celebi vanished. It appeared again, fully healed moments later, radiating power and hovering behind Ripper.

There were no one-liners. It didn't stop to casually fling death threats.

Instead it darted through him, glowing blue the whole while. He convulsed as it carried on past, stopped in front of Irenui and punched her in the face. One of her red tinted eye shields cracked under the blow. It teleported behind her, kicked her in the back, appeared again beneath her and punched her in the gut hard enough to make something crack.

It vanished again.

This time it appeared in front of Willow. It seemed to stop before her, taking her in. A smile crept across its face.

The gardevoir was shaking. Her bloodthirsty scream told me it was anything but fear. She leapt at the creature, screaming incoherently. It became a teleporting match of destruction. Every time they appeared again, her claws her dripping with more blood and green flesh. Every time, she seemed to be a little more worse for wear herself.

It carried on for a good minute before Leif rumbled. The tropius snatched the celebi from the air, bit down hard enough to break bones and threw it to the floor. With a roar, he fell down upon it, splintering the ground beneath him. He rumbled, lifted up a foot and continued to stomp down on the bloody mess of the legend beneath him.

When he finally stopped, there was eerie calm for a moment.

Then a blue glow snapped his legs in every different direction.

He collapsed to the floor with a scream. A bloody and beaten celebi hovered above him, dripping blood and puss down onto the floor. It flickered in the air and appeared in front of Siren, regarding her with a laugh.

"Is there anything sadder than a beached lapras?"

Her response was to freeze it solid.

I threw myself in front of Ripper when he went to attack the frozen block. "We need to kill it in one blow!" I screamed at him. "Can't you see? Everything else is just making it more angry! Get the tropius out of here! It needs healing!" My hands were shaking as I handed him the two filled poké balls I carried. "These two as well! Just do it!" I screamed before he could argue.

His eye narrowed. Finally he breathed a sigh. He took the balls from me, floated over to Leif and disappeared into the shadows. It was a long moment before he reappeared, floating above the frozen celebi.

"We need to take out its time travel and life in one," I told him. "Best bet is to just explode the whole damn thing."

I glanced backwards at my pokémon. They all looked eager to end this. As did the girl and her pokémon. Adryan's pokémon looked ready to murder it. Only his shuckle remained stationary. It had done nothing the whole time, merely remaining hidden inside its shell.

I wondered idly if Adryan had really thought things through when it sent that to help me.

It was then that the ice exploded and let loose the monster within. Psychic power rolled off it in waves. Stones from the earth started rising up from the floor. The leaves in the trees started leaning towards it. It was like a nexus; drawing in power from everywhere.

Gravity seemed to flip on its head.

Scar bounced down at my side, hissing at the sudden change. He grabbed me and hunkered down, Loki trapped underneath his body. Erra flickered from underneath Alistair, who leant down next to me. The girl's venusaur wrapped her in vines and held itself to the ground. Ripper was slowly being drawn towards the celebi. He grabbed Hale as he was drawn in and tried to flaot away from the power. Siren hissed and snatched them both, grabbing Ripper by the back of his neck in her mouth. Irenui flapped her wings, grabbed Willow and dug straight into the earth itself.

My hands were shaking as I tried to pry free the gun from my belt. I knew I had one shot. One shot that would kill the thing and end this for good.

One shot, with what seemed like a time limit of thirty seconds.

The gun wouldn't stop rattling in my hands. I tried to steady it as best I could. I had to aim for the base of its brain. Behind the eyes, at the very bottom of its brain. That was where the organ that let it navigate through time was. A little bit above that was the part of the brain that helped it teleport. Just behind them both was its spinal cord.

One shot.

No pressure.

I breathed out, took a long breath in and held it. I wished I had a sniper rifle in my hands. It would have made things so much easier. Easy or not, I had to take the shot.

I wasn't nervous. I was full-out _terrified._

I saw my chance.

I pulled the trigger.

And the bullet bounced off an invisible barrier.

My heart almost literally fell apart. I watched the little piece of metal bounce across the floor as my pokémon tried their best to keep up grounded. Erra clicked wildly and tried her gravity tricks. It made everything feel heavier, but it didn't seem to be enough.

That was it. There was nothing else I could do.

I looked forwards at the sight of the shuckle, still hidden within its shell. Slowly the force of the celebi's power seemed to draw it in. It teetered forwards, nearly going over. I saw the pokémon with glance out of one of the holes. It looked up at the celebi and its whole shell seemed to shine.

There was a sound like a gunshot.

I blinked and suddenly the shuckle wasn't there anymore. I saw it plough through the celebi. It carried on barrelling until it shined again and dropped to the floor some distance away from it, squashed celebi still covering its body.

In the nexus of the power, half a celebi's body dropped to the floor. Its brains were pouring out of what remained of its skull. One of its lungs was there, still trying to take in air. All that remained was half a head and less than a quarter of its torso.

With nowhere to go, the power it had collected exploded outwards. Even with the weight of my pokémon covering me, I was still sent flying. I landed in a heap some distance away, Alistair and Scar draped over my back, Erra on my head and Loki squashed beneath us all. The girl screamed as her venusaur nearly flattened her and Adryan's pokémon flew in every different direction imaginable.

I pulled myself up and found my arms were shaking too much to support me. In fact, my entire body was shaking as I stared over at the shuckle. It poked its head out of the top of its shell, glanced at the celebi, then at the remains covering its shell. It licked the meat tentatively before hissing and recoiling back into the dark depths it called home.

I burst out laughing. After everything, it was finally dead! I couldn't believe it was over. I couldn't believe that I'd managed to come out of it alive.

I couldn't believe a _shuckle_ had killed a celebi.

I climbed my way out from underneath Scar and made my way towards what was left of the creature. Gemini had told me that they could be healed by taking them back to the pool of life. The one that healed them all. The one that apparently I'd been grown in.

There didn't look like there'd be much left to try and repair.

To make it even harder for them, I stomped down on what remained. Bone and brain squished under my boots and splattered everywhere. I reached down and made sure the required bits of its brain were dead. Just to be sure, I pulled them out, tossed them in front of the girl and let her blast them into dust with her shotgun.

Even if it could come back from that, it wouldn't be coming back for a damn long time.

Ripper floated up to me and glanced down at the remains. A long second passed before he turned to look at me.

"_It is dead."_

I doubled over with laughter. "No shit," I said finally.

He seemed to hum to himself. _"Master Adryan asked us to help you. He said he knew it would come for you soon. He saw it. He made us swear to help you in whatever way we could. … I hope we have made him proud."_

I looked up at the ghost. "I'm sure you have."

He didn't seem too convinced. _"Your pokémon are with Master Chris. She will be happy to know you are still alive."_

He turned and started to float away. He stopped just shy of the rest of his comrades and turned back to face me, almost like he'd forgotten something.

"_There is one other thing Master Adryan said. He wanted you to know that only what sentenced you to death can relieve you from said sentence."_

"T-thanks," I said after him, not too sure what he meant. He nodded, grabbed both Siren and Hale and vanished into his shadow. Irenui flapped out of her place in the ground, pulling Willow out. The two seemed to stop for a moment, noticing me.

I met Willow's eyes from a distance. She looked away, but I felt her voice in my head. _[I do not blame you. Our master's murderer is dead. You and I were both used in sealing his fate. I will not hunt you when I am also guilty of the same crime.]_

In a flash, her, the shuckle and the flygon were gone. I touched my head and felt the bubbling pain from my unwelcome guest dancing away.

"Remind me never to come to one of your parties again," she said with a smile. "They involve way too much death and destruction."

I managed a soft snort. "Serves you right for crashing in the first place. Though the next time I'm the guest of honour, warn me?"

She laughed. "Nice work back there. If it wasn't for that stupid barrier, you'd have gotten it. Real sharpshooter, aren't you?"

I smirked and said nothing. I made my way back to my pokémon and checked them out. They would live.

_[Are you well, sir?]_

I touched what remained of my ear and managed a small laugh. "I'm better than I've felt in a long while. That thing's not coming back for a long time to try and do away with us."

Just to be sure, I went back and stomped what remained into dust. Loki joined in, reclaiming his new scythe and merrily dicing the body apart. Erra poked the remains curiously as Scar hung back, conversing with Alistair in low whispers.

The girl walked to my side and stared down at the celebi's body. "For something that nurtured us, it didn't have much of a maternal streak, did it?" She smiled to herself and poked it with the toe of her boot. "And yet, that gooey, desecrated and broken body is somehow the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

She hummed to herself as her pokémon loudly ate the remains of ancient pokémon nearby. "So Sharpshooter, I don't think we've formally met," she said cheerily. She spun on the spot and stuck a hand between us. "I'm Natasha. Natasha Keeper."

I grinned and followed suit. "Good to meet you. I'm Callum Swift."


	59. The Seven Steps to Normality

_**Pokémon**_

_**Regret**_

**The Seven Steps to Normality**

* * *

_Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams _~ Ashley Smith

**-O-O-O-**

"Can… hear… this?"

I shook my head and sighed. The doctor waved his hand a few times around my missing ear, scowled at it and quickly wrote down unintelligible scribbles on his notepad.

"I'm afraid you've suffered about seventy per cent hearing loss on your left hand side," he said, speaking on my right hand side. At least he was managing to do that with almost subconscious effort. It just meant it was another thing I'd have to get my team to do.

In addition to stopping Loki from continually trying to scream into the scar.

The doctor tutted and tapped the end of his pen against the infernal clipboard. "Otherwise, most of your injuries are superficial. Your kidneys, however…" He grimaced and pointed to a few x-rays on the wall. Information filtered up into my brain to tell me just what I was looking at. Big black spots covered most of the area where my kidneys should have been.

He sighed. "You've got perhaps a month until you'll have to be put on a kidney dialysis machine. Unless we can find a donor for you, you'll have to plug that in each night to help your body filter out everything. Which means, I'm afraid, that until you get a transplant, you won't be trekking across the country."

That hit me harder than I thought it would. I frowned and tried to disguise the emotions I felt in a sigh. The doctor didn't seem to be fooled. He tapped his clipboard again and scrutinised it with expert vision. "I see here that you're an only child, which means we'll have to take donors from the outside. The best I can do is put you on the register and hopefully you'll get something within the year."

I felt the building pressure on my brain. I had about until I needed that dialysis machine until my unwelcome guest killed me.

What Ripper told me played on my mind. I had to find the source of such a sentence.

I had to find a mewtwo… _The_ Mewtwo… whatever it happened to call itself, whatever it happened to be.

"Thanks," I said tonelessly. "Can I go now? My pokémon are being treated in the pokémon hospital nearby."

He pursed his lips and still managed to sigh through them. "I don't think you understand just how serious this is, Alex. Your body is failing you. If left untreated, you could die."

That already happened before I was even born.

"I know," I said quickly. "I need to find a donor otherwise my kidneys will fail and slowly kill me. And if I don't stick myself on one of those dialysis machines, I won't be able to live that long before my kidneys fully fail anyway. I get what you're saying. But my pokémon are hurt and if I am pretty much doomed, I'd rather go see them before anything goes south."

He shook his head. "Fine. I've told you all I can. I'll have one of the nurses at reception have you fill in the paperwork for this." He flipped one of the pages on his clipboard up and pulled out a pamphlet from beneath. "This might help you. It has an unfortunate title, but it explains everything that you'll need to know."

I took it from him and managed the ghost of a smirk at the pamphlet's title. _So, you're going to die._

Morbid was a bit of an understatement.

I thanked him and made my way from the hospital as quickly as I could. Outside I found Chris waiting for me, leant back against her car with Loki and Erra sat atop the roof.

She held a hand out and smiled. "It worked then?"

I nodded and handed her back a few papers and a trainer card. "Like a charm. How did you manage to create a trainer identity like that?"

She grinned. "When people leave their pokémon with me, they have to give me authentic proof they're who they say they are. It's really illegal and a massive breach of my contract with them, but I can use their paperwork to get all new identity paperwork created."

I grunted an acknowledgement and said no more on that. I was just thankful she could even do that. Turning up in hospital with my name felt like an invitation for more nameless suits to come after me. "Where's Scar?" I asked her.

She smiled and pointed upwards. He flew through the sky, stalking after a flock of swallow. He roared in delight as they squawked and tried their best to fly away from them.

I laughed at the sight. "Obviously that little trip through time made him a pretty good hunter."

Chris just chuckled disbelievingly. "This is all still a little hard to process. If it wasn't for the fact that he's obviously at least four years older than when I saw him last, I'd be convinced that you were pulling a prank on me." She hopped into her car and leant back against her seat as she waited for me to jump in after her. "At least I was right about one thing in all of this; you being from the future _was_ nothing but an elaborate prank. It was just pulled on you and by extension, me."

I grunted as I took Loki and Erra from the roof and held them in my lap. "Don't remind me," I said as I got into my seat. "It's still too hard to process. My whole life's been nothing but a ploy. I always felt like a tool that someone else was using… I just never thought that was my entire existence."

She smiled and started her car. "Well, at least now it's dead, right? That means you can do whatever you want."

"Until my tumour kills me," I grunted.

She paled at that, but said nothing towards it. "You managed to kill a celebi," she said after a pause. "Maybe you'll find a way to beat this."

"Maybe," I agreed half-heartedly. "But that means finding Mewtwo. The Cluster's connected to places like Mount Silver and Cerulean Cave underground. That's how it's been getting around. That means it could be anywhere."

"It'll be Cerulean," Chris told me. She tapped her artificial arm subconsciously. "I always wondered why everything felt so wrong in that place. What you said about the fog in your mind… it took me a long while to even remember that, let alone understand it. I remember that when we in Cerulean. I think… I think that's what made everything with Owen happen. Even if it isn't, I'm choosing to believe that." She sighed and checked her watch. "Your pokémon should be out of the emergency room by now."

Dread settled like a lead weight in my stomach. "Yeah, but will they be walking out or being carried out?"

She reached over, grabbed my hand and squeezed it reassuringly for a moment. "Keep your hopes up. Things might turn out better than they seem."

* * *

"She'll never battle again."

I stared at the doctor, mouth slightly agape and brain almost medically dead. The woman adjusted a few tubes on Lacey's body and tried to move a few bandages without hurting her.

"N-never?" I gasped out.

She nodded slowly. "I'm afraid so. The injury she sustained damaged both her lungs. To save her life, we had to remove one of them. Unfortunately, the image also damaged her heart to a high degree. With time and rest, it'll heal fully, but any excess stress she incurs will be too much for her body to handle. At best, you'll be able to keep her… as a pet."

Lacey, as a _pet_? That wasn't going to happen.

"But she can still do simple things, right? She likes collecting herbs, making po… urm, medicines from them. She'll be able to do that, right?"

The doctor looked shocked for a moment. Then quickly she recovered and managed a tiny nod. "So long as there isn't excessive strain on her body, she'll be able to. But even when she's recovered fully, she's going to need to rest a lot. At best, she'll probably have just over half the stamina she had before this injury."

I touched Lacey's arm and traced the burns scaling down her body. One hand was missing the leafy covering and a lot of her body was missing fur. A machine kept her breathing for now; the doctors told me it'd be at least a week until she woke up, let alone was able to breathe on her own again.

The doctor sighed and led me into another room. "Your girafarig, however…" She couldn't finish her own sentence. The room she led me into was much bigger, with Gemini stood in the middle, hooks and tubes linked up to her. She glanced down as we entered, ears flickering in slow acknowledgment.

"She's… going to need constant care," the doctor told me. "Most of a girafarig's instincts are held in the tail-head. Without it, she's reduced to basics. She'll only realise she's hungry when her stomach is completely empty. She'll only realise she's tired when she's ready to pass out. Likewise, only when her bladder is near bursting will she realise she needs to excrete. Battle-wise, it's a lost cause. She still can perform her attacks, but she'd be reliant on you for everything; to tell her when to dodge, when to attack, _where_ to attack.

"Along with everything, most of her instinctual emotions are missing. Fear is one of the biggest ones; she won't be able to feel it anymore. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, it means that she lacks that gut feeling we have that warns us against doing something. She could wander into a salamence nest without a moment's thought."

Gemini craned her neck and regarded the doctor with a lidded expression. _[I lack instinct. I am not a moron. My species do not live past twenty summers in the wild without some degree of intelligence. I merely need to think every decision through before I make it.]_

"I apologise," the doctor said quickly. "Most trainer pokémon are caught still young. Anyway," – she glanced back at her clipboard, "-The three pokémon we discharged with you when you came in are fit and healthy, they just need rest to heal their wounds, as I'm sure you were told at the time. Your magnemite's wing will grow back and your charizard's wing should heal over with a new scar. You gallade, however…" She glanced up at the door as it opened and Alistair walked in. A heavy bandage wrapped up over his missing arm and stretched across his shoulders.

"I _told_ you to remain in bed!" the doctor snapped at him.

He bowed to her. _[I acknowledge your concerns, ma'am, but I feel rested enough to not take up more space. It is my arm that no longer remains, not my legs. I can fight, I can protect and I am able to function. Remaining curled up in a bed is not something I wish to spend my time doing, ma'am.]_

The woman clicked her tongue and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Okay. That's your decision, but I would advise that you don't battle or lift anything heavy for two weeks until that injury is fully healed over." She turned to me and said, "After that, we can see about finding a prosthetic."

_[No,]_ Alistair said quickly. _[I will cope as I am. I appreciate the offer, ma'am, but I will learn to adapt.]_

"Very well," the doctor said. "That's everything, for now. My advice; next time, be very careful about what you go investigating. Metagross are territorial creatures; you're lucky you got away with the injuries that you did."

I gave her an embarrassed thanks before she walked out of the room. Alistair waited a long moment, looking up at Gemini in silence before he spoke.

_[Your actions were right, even if you do not see it that way.]_

"Really?" I couldn't believe it. "Look at how you guys have suffered. All because I caught you and dragged you into this."

He glanced down at me and smiled wryly. _[Believe me sir, you do not force us. The poké balls may help you capture us, but we make our own decisions towards everything. If we did not wish to follow you, we would have left long ago.]_ He gestured towards his missing arm. _[This is but a small price to pay to know that those we care about are safe. Moreover, you did not come out of this completely unscathed yourself.]_

"I suppose," I said distantly, pressing my bandaged ear. "What was the past like then? Or the future? Wherever the celebi dropped you and Scar off at."

Alistair shrugged. _[It was a struggle. Every day was a fight for survival. More than that… need you know? Look at what has come from the constant thought of the past or the future already.]_

"I guess you're right," I admitted reluctantly. "Still, that was all I ever had to think about. Now that it's all gone… now the celebi's dead, I'm just a tool without a purpose. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

He smiled and pressed his hand onto my shoulder. _[Dear sir, you may have been a tool, but you still are an intelligent, thinking being. I have no doubts that you will be able to think of what you can achieve with your life now. And know that we are behind you.]_ He moved his shoulders, frowned and just stared at where his arm used to be. _[It still feels like it is there. I know it only happened a short while ago, but still…]_

"You get used to it in time," Chris said from the doorway. She smiled at us both and glanced up at Alistair. With a grin, she unhooked her fake arm and pressed herself by his side, her missing left arm against his missing right. "But look at us; we look like a conjoined twin!" She laughed and managed to get the tiniest of chuckles out of him. "That feeling never fully goes away. Even now I sometimes forget and try to grab something with my missing arm or even try to catch something with it. You have to make the effort to remember most of the time." She patted him on the shoulder and started to slowly try to hook her own artificial arm back in place.

"So how bad are things?" she asked me. She looked back up at Gemini and smiled. "I saw your shiftry; she's still alive. Clearly your girafarig is too."

Gemini rolled her eyes and muttered something about stating the obvious before reaching up and trying to remember where her food had been placed.

"Gemini's not going to be able to battle again well," I said. "If she does, she's going to have to rely on me completely for things like when to dodge and that." I caught the look Gemini gave me and quickly added, "But of course, she can figure things out herself too. I'm sure she'll be able to think of when she needs to avoid something and when to attack.

"Lacey… well…" I glanced back in the direction of her room. "She's not going to be able to battle again. The doctor said it would put too much stress on her. She's only got one lung left now too, which probably isn't going to do her much good when she's sat around making poisons. Alistair obviously has to adjust, but the others are going to be fine, once they've healed, apparently."

"Well, there's some good news in there, at least," Chris said. "Any ideas what you're going to do now?"

I had only one. I touched my head and knew what my decision had to be before I'd even consciously made it.

"Cerulean cave."

Everyone around me was deathly silent.

"I need to go there," I said, half to myself, half to them. "If that's where Mewtwo's hanging out… Ripper said Adryan figured out that only the thing that caused this lovely brain-guest can get rid of it again. Something gave me the knowledge to kill the celebi. I'm hoping that it was Mewtwo and maybe it'll do some good since I killed it."

Chris sighed, turned away and started tapping her foot on the ground. "When are you planning on going?"

I shrugged. "As soon as. Gemini and Lacey won't be coming – you _won't_ be and that's that," I said as Gemini glared down at me. She huffed and retreated to staring out of the ceiling windows, pretending as if I wasn't there. "Lacey can't battle anyway now."

"So you're going into one of the most dangerous places there is with a one-armed gallade, two young pokémon and really, only a charizard for protection?"

When she put it like that, it did seem like a stupid idea.

"Well, yeah," I said simply. "Best I figure, I have maybe a month before this all goes south and my brain kills me. I don't really have time to waste."

"What about Natasha?" Chris asked.

I shook my head. "Her drapion's still out of it. She's only got a venusaur and a spoink. More than that, she said that if I do that, she'll start looking into things to see if she can find out where the celebi keep everyone. We've already decided on when we'll meet up again and where we'll leave any information we obtain if we don't make it to meet with each other again."

"You've got this all thought out, yet at the same time, you're going into it blind," Chris lamented. "Fine, I'm coming with you," she decided. "No arguments. I've been there before, I know what to expect. More than that… I _need_ to go back. The place has terrified me and haunted my dreams ever since I was first there; I need to get over that phase of my life."

"Thanks," I said, meaning it. I felt an impish smile crawl over my face. "What about your job though? It seems like you're hardly ever there."

She snorted and poked me in the chest. "I'll have you know that when you're not dragging me around, I'm working almost sixteen hours a day there. I work that much that when I take time off, people are actually relieved."

"You're sure about this?" I asked her.

She pulled a face that said she clearly wasn't. "I'm sure," she said. "How soon do you want to go?"

I shrugged and glanced at Alistair. "When do you think you'll be fit enough to fight again?"

He flexed his arm and glared down at the missing other. _[I shall endeavour to be prepared on the morrow, sir.]_

"So that's when we'll get this out of the way then. Tomorrow I'm setting out to pay Mewtwo a visit."

* * *

"For years I've feared this place. Turns out now it's just mostly dust and cobwebs."

Chris rubbed a hand across a lonely rock and glanced around the cave. She held her lantern up just a little, stared into the darkness and tried to make out something in the distance.

"It was near here that the parasect claimed my arm," she explained to me. She turned away, looked over the floor and chuckled to herself. "I know it's stupid of me, but a little part of me wants to find it lying around here. I know it's been eaten. I know that even if I did find it, there'd be nothing left of it but bone and gooey, maggoty rot. But still…" She turned away with a curse and motioned for her arcanine. "Burn it," she said.

He looked at her, head cocked to the side. She gestured to the remains of a nest and told him to burn it again. He barked something at her and happily breathed flames over everything, burning the ancient debris to dust in seconds.

"Damn parasect," Chris said with a shudder. "The one pokémon I won't look after."

Everyone had their pokémon demons, after all. I'd never really taken time to acknowledge it before, but knowing Chris hated and feared parasect that rivalled my own towards gardevoir made me feel a bit more normal.

Normal was something I needed, after all. Knowing that I didn't actually deserve to be in the world… that I'd been essentially bred for one specific purpose… I needed to know that I fit in, even if it was in the most bizarre way possible.

Chris shuddered and pulled her coat a little bit tighter. "This place is freezing," she said, breath fogging on the air. The flames puttered out into nothing, leaving us back in the cold dark once more. "I don't know how you can stand it."

"Partial ice adaptation," I told her, no-nonsense. "Celebis apparently needed dark adapted kids to work with so they could fill our heads with all the shit they needed to. I'm guessing that the ice was just an overlooked blessing."

Chris said nothing, watching a golbat flutter in the distance. As soon as it saw us, she nodded to her arcanine. It leapt upon the bat, tearing its wings and face off without ever making even the slightest sound.

She turned back to face me, a question in her face. "Have you… no, it's a stupid question."

Stupid or not, she couldn't expect me not to pry after that. "Have I ever what?"

She shrugged and looked away. "Wanted to know if you have a family," she said, barely audible.

The thought _was_ a new one. I stopped where I was, in a puddle of something I didn't want to think about and tried my best to picture it. "It's not going to happen," I told her. "Even if I did… even if I _do_… they think I'm dead. I can't really turn up at their house and be like, 'Hey, remember that stillborn baby you had almost eighteen years ago? Well, guess who I am!'"

She managed a small laugh. "I don't mean like that. I mean… just to _know_. If they're dead, if they're alive… if they're the ones that actually named you or not."

The thought stopped me shot. "You don't think they're the ones that named me?"

"I don't know," she said with a sigh. "I can't speak for other people. But I know my older sister decides on names for her kids pretty much as soon as she finds out the gender. Me and my other sister have had the names for our kids planned out since we played with the first dollhouse our parents bought us. Most of what you've done so far might have been the machinations of something trying to change the world, but that doesn't mean that's who you always were."

"Maybe," I said slowly. I glanced back over at Alistair, some distance behind us. He walked nimbly through the fallen rocks, occasionally stumbling as he tried to lean on his non-existent arm. I frowned, but every time he caught me looking, he'd pretend that nothing was wrong. I wasn't going to call him out on it if he wasn't getting hurt. "Where do we go from here? I can't feel any fog on my brain and there's no tracks lying around here. In fact, if it wasn't for that golbat, I'd be convinced pokémon don't live in here at all."

"It _was_ a lot busier here when I was here last. The pokémon wouldn't have changed territories that fast." She placed a hand on her hip and gestured for her pokémon. "Khan, smell anything like pokémon in here?"

He barked and trotted up to her side, sniffing the air loudly. At her side he stopped rigid, still sniffing, eyes shut and snout pointed to the roof. Finally he stopped, yipped something and pawed at the ground.

"Maybe a level or two down," Chris translated. "But nothing really up here. I don't like this." She kicked a rock forwards a little and tensed, waiting for something to leap out. When nothing did, she glowered into the dark. "There was a lake here before. Weakly acidic, but nothing strong enough to erode through the landscape and change everything. It's almost like something or someone has come in here and changed the entirety of this place around."

I pulled a face and tried to picture it how it might once have been. "Celebi did say that Mewtwo absorbs the information of people it kills. Maybe it used that to change around things in here?"

"Unless he's been absorbing a few engineers, geologists and maybe an ecologist, I doubt that's happened," she said with a scoff. "Although, who knows. All I can say for definite is that everything in here has changed. A _lot_. I don't like it. If this were a movie I'd be screaming at the people to just turn around and leave."

"Isn't that when they usually get eaten by terrible monsters?"

"Don't remind me," she grunted. "That would well and truly be my role in a film. Token minority girl, first one to be eaten by the monster."

I smiled coyly. "If anything, you'd be the one killing in the film."

She sighed and rolled her eyes to the dark. "One day I'm going to go through with all these things you accuse me of. You're the one that's actually killed people. At least when I do it, no one knows anything about it."

"Why? What? You've killed people?"

She smiled. "All part of the mystery my friend." She stopped and gestured for her arcanine to follow her slowly. "The air feels different around here. Not as dusty. It's been disturbed recently. Can Alistair figure out if anything's been through here?"

He strode up behind us, remained in the shadows and shook his head. _[I am not proficient enough. My prowess lies in physical fights, not mental.]_

"Worth a shot," I grunted. "Haven't you got any psychics?"

Chris grunted a no. "Only Matilda. I don't really like psychics. Something about having something that can read my mind is just a little weird. I don't like it when Jon knows what I'm thinking just by knowing me, let alone having something actually read my mind. It's like having a diary that's constantly being read by all of your friends."

"Considering my mind's been the plaything of a time traveller, I can't complain about having pokémon knowing what I'm thinking."

"I suppose you're right there." She frowned and leant forwards towards a corridor. "Hold on a sec; this is the only way forwards from here. If I could just – well, that's not right."

Her voice was seriousness and sarcasm blended perfectly into one. "What? What's wrong?"

She moved and stood in the corridor, standing numbly in front of the darkness. She held her lantern up and let me see what she was looking at – a massive wall of boulders and stone.

"That wasn't there before. That's the only way down to the lower levels." She gestured behind her. "We've followed the _only_ pathway there is here. Even though the lakes have dried up, they still only lead to here. Since when was it a dead end?"

"Since someone created a pissed off clone of a legend?" I guessed. I moved past her and inspected the wall with my eyes. There wasn't any place I could see that allowed any leverage. A few steps closer and I could feel like something was pulling me in. It wasn't the fog, nor was it anything in my brain. My gut told me what I needed lay somewhere beyond the wall.

I moved forwards and pressed my hands against the rocky wall.

As soon as I did, everything around my melted away.

I found myself in an empty room again.

One I recognised.

It was the exact same as the one that showed me the glimpses of the future. The movie screen rolled down again and I flinched away, expecting more pain. Last time it had shown me the future and given me a tumour.

This time however, it showed the past.

The celebi dying seemed to be on loop. Occasionally the video or whatever it would sped up. Sometimes it slowed down and panned around. At one point it froze at the exact moment Ward had charged through the celebi, where it looked like they were one unholy creature.

The whole time, it felt like there was a sense of… gratitude coming from somewhere.

Again words formed on the screen. This time, they were different.

_The insurance paid off well. Only when you had everything to lose did you finally act._

I frowned at it and tried to figure out a way to talk to whatever was causing all of it. "You're… Mewtwo, aren't you?"

There was a long pause.

_I have… been called that name before._

"Then, why me?" I asked it. "Why give me the tumour and let me fight that celebi?"

_You were the best candidate. All the evidence showed you had the highest chance of succeeding._

"Me?"

_Yes. You had a three-point-zero-six-seven per cent chance of success._

I winced, even though I'd already come out of everything alive. "So… you gave me this tumour… to do what exactly? Make me angry and desperate enough to go chasing after that thing?"

_In a way._

"So, you can take it away again?"

_Perhaps._

I glared at the screen, though it got me nowhere. "That's not much of an answer. I've done your dirty work for you here. I've taken out the celebi you wanted me too. It was you that put all that knowledge of how to kill it in my brain, wasn't it?"

_Perhaps._

I swore at the empty screen. "What the hell is going on here?"

_I thought you were the key. You are not. You are coincidence. I am waiting for destiny._

"Does being a vague ass come with the job description of being an all-powerful psychic or something?"

_There is no job description. Only what __**is**_**.**

"I really don't care anymore," I muttered defiantly, crossing my arms and turning away. "Are you going to help me or not? Because if you won't, I'll go and find a bad surgeon who might be able to cut this tumour out of my brain. Or better yet, I'll find this destiny you're waiting for and stop it from ever meeting you."

_My destiny comes long after your death. You cannot stop fate, merely delay it._

I growled and threw my hands up into the air. "I give up with you! I came here because you're meant to be able to take this stupid thing away from me because you're what gave it to me in the first place! That dead celebi decided you were _such_ an inspiration that apparently it wanted to make me like a human version of you! Now, it must have failed because I'm pretty damn sure I'm not this much of an ass when someone needs my help!"

_A clone of a clone? Curious._

"Yes, very _curious_."

_They wish to clone me? Very well. I know of their plans to double-cross me. I act in secret against them. Their arrogance shall be their undoing._

"In case you haven't noticed, that celebi's kinda _dead_."

_It is not the only one. More shall fall._

_You however…_

The room felt like it was melting again. Only this time the white was draining from the walls, leaving a complete _nothing_ beyond. It was dark, but it filled me with dread like I'd never experienced before.

_A favour for a favour. You have helped me; I shall help you. My acts shall remain hidden. They will not know I am aware of their plans. You will not remember ever meeting me._

_Goodbye._

_And…_

_Good luck._

_Friend._

* * *

My head felt heavy as I woke up. As soon as I sat up though, it was like my head suddenly lost all weight and I had to fight against it to keep it tethered to earth. I grunted and kicked at the cushions beneath me, frowned and tried my best to remember how I'd gotten there.

Nearby me, Chris stirred, grunted and rolled off another couch and onto the floor.

"Huhwha?" She yelped, sitting up straight and looking in need of a year's more sleep. She frowned, rubbed a hand over her face and grunted a confused tone. "What? Weren't we… just at the hospital? When did… when did we get back to my place?"

I flailed uselessly under the weight of gravity and hit the floor myself. "I don't remember," I said into the carpet. "We were in the hospital with my pokémon. I had an idea to do something… something that felt important." It was like a name on the tip of my tongue; there, yet somehow lost to me all at once. "I can't remember."

"I'm sure it'll come to you," she said as she pushed herself to her feet. "How did we get here though?" She touched her belt and found a few poké balls there. "Huh. Either Khan or Alistair must have teleported us here then. We must have fallen asleep at the hospital or something."

_[I apologise,]_ Alistair said as he teleported into the room. Chris and I both leapt out of our skin, glaring at him with shocked and angry expressions. _[When you both lost consciousness, I thought it best to return you to a place which was better suited for sleep. Unfortunately, I am… not as well equipped to carry anything such a long distance anymore.]_ He motioned towards his arm and made a show of trying to carry something on a missing limb. _[I did the best I could.]_

"Thanks," Chris said. She glanced up at the clock, grunted and rubbed her eyes. "Wow. We must have been out of it. Slept like logs. Hard to think it was about three days ago you got to that hospital and were told you wouldn't sleep well without pain meds."

"Yeah," I said slowly, all traces of forgotten ideas vanishing. At once I remembered spending each day with my pokémon in the hospital, taking care of them and making sure they'd wake up. "I'll book a room in the pokémon centre for the next few days, so I'm closer to the hospital. That alright with you Chris?"

"Sure," she said, fingering through a little book. "Huh. My diary's all a bit muddled. I haven't drawn over what I wrote since I was little and found out my sisters were trying to read it. Weird. Ah well," she said, clapping the book shut. "Times of stress and all that. Keep me updated?"

"Sure thing," I said. "Can you teleport me there, Alistair?"

_[Of course, sir,]_ he said with a low bow. _[To the lonely, even the smallest act of help can mark one as their friend.]_

I blinked, confused. "Urm, okay? What's brought that on?"

_[Nothing, sir.]_ He smiled wryly and grabbed my shoulder. _[Just some useful advice. It could be what led to your unwelcome brain guest suddenly vanishing.]_

I stared at him, no idea what he was talking about. "Unwelcome brain guest? Just what the hell does that mean?" I felt at my head for something like a leech sticking out of my brain. "What's been going on there?"

He raised his hand to his chin. _[If you do not recall such, it does not matter. Let us be off to the hospital and whatever awaits us, sir.]_

* * *

It was at the end of the first month that the first change happened. I had always known it was eventually come to pass, I had just hoped that something would make it happen another way.

Gemini smiled down at me, ears flickering just a little. _[It was kind of you, to drop me off so close to where we first met.]_

I managed to smile back at her. "Least I can do, right? You know though… you don't _have_ to leave. I've actually liked working with you for these past months. Despite our disagreements, you've been a good friend."

She craned her neck down and rubbed her head against mine. _[And you too. But we were only working towards a common goal. While I am saddened I did not witness the creature's death with my own eyes, I am happy it is dead. Your memories of the event are enough for me. My foal has been avenged. That is all I can ask for.]_

I reached up and scratched her behind the ears. "You sure you'll be okay though? We could always walk you back to your herd, to make sure you're safe."

She laughed and licked the top of my head. The hair there was still re-growing and I'd had to cut it all short enough to match. It still felt weird. _[It is kind of you to offer. But no, you cannot. I am half what I was,]_ she said, nodding towards her tail. It still had a few bandages over it, but otherwise, it would be fully healed within a few weeks. _[My herd will not accept me back unless I can find the way back to them myself. If I cannot, I am a burden on them all. The needs of the many must come before those of the few. It has been a pleasure being with you. All of you,]_ she added, glancing over my shoulder to the other pokémon.

_[You are friends I never thought I would have. But there always comes the time when friends must part, does it not?]_

"I suppose so," I admitted reluctantly. "I guess… well, try to keep in touch, huh?" I patted her head and managed to smile at her. "Either way, it's been good to know you Gem- I mean, _Garmine Erine Mendus Indigo Nova Ilus._"

She snorted. _[I think I may honestly die of shock.]_

"After facing down a celebi, that's a bit lame, isn't it?" I said with a laugh.

_[Death comes to us all,]_ she said seriously. _[Take care of yourself Callum. Yours is a death I would mourn.]_

"You too," I said lamely as she said her goodbyes to the rest of my pokémon. Once everything was said and down, she bowed her head once more and took off slowly into the forests near Fortree, not looking back once.

"I'm not crying," I grunted as Scar sniffed my head. "I just… I'm allergic to the grass here. Stupid grass."

He mumbled something and leant his head against my shoulder. I sighed my agreement and reached up to scratch his neck.

I never did see her after that day.

* * *

"Do I look like an interior decorator to you?"

"You look like a few things. Do you want me to name them?"

"Oh sure, I'll just start listing things! I think we should add a rug over there. It covers up the blood stains _rather_ well. That mush that remains of _splattered pokémon_? A new lick of pink paint should clean that right up."

"Is it that hard to just accept that I wanted your opinion on something?" I punched the wall nearby and winced at the metallic bite that shocked my fist. "I wasn't thinking, oh my god, you're a woman, you should know how to decorate! I honestly wanted your goddamn _opinion_!"

She threw her paintbrush at my head. "Well then, when you want my opinion, don't come out with shit like 'oh, you should know all about this!' I've never had to think about what wallpaper might clean up bloodstains before! I don't think that was the future the celebi were so intent on making me remember!"

"Well ex_cuse_ me! We're meant to be doing this together and every chance you get, you pick a fight!" I sighed and dropped my paintbrush on the floor. It splattered white over the floor, barely even managing to cover the old blood stains. "Maybe we should try and figure out what caused all the damage in here. There was a massacre here and we still don't know what did it."

"I'll just add it to the list, shall I?" she sniped. "Before or after finding out a pool of water celebi and stillborn babies come back to life in?"

"This shouldn't be this stressful," I sighed. "Turning the old Magma base into a bunker is a brilliant idea. When the world falls apart, at least people will have a place they can live in. We need to get this done before we can move onto other places, like the old Aqua one, or even get them built elsewhere."

"We're going to need people to help us in this," she pointed out. "A lot of them aren't going to like knowing they're working for the people who happened to have a part in making the world turn into a nuclear wasteland."

"Or whatever it happens to turn into," I grunted. "Like it or not, we're going to have to sort this whole thing out. What do you think we should do here, Keeper? It's a bit much to try and do by ourselves."

"You know what Sharpshooter?" She sighed and sat down, leaning against the wall. "I wish I knew. I honestly do. It's not like we've got all the time in the world."

"Yeah," I grunted, heart heavy. I leant against the wall next to her and sighed. "So… what did you in the first time around?"

She pressed a hand over her chest. "Lungs. Didn't work properly. So until I get a transplant, I'm going to have to rely on something to breathe for me when things get bad. You?"

"Kidneys," I said, poking them. "I've already got the dialysis machine hooked up into me each night. I need a transplant soon or everything's going to fail and kill me again."

"Sucks, huh?" she whispered. "Say… do you ever find it all a bit strange?"

"What?"

She shrugged. "_'Sharpshooter', 'Keeper'._ Ever strike you as weird as those are the names in those insane visions of the future we get?"

I shrugged. "Somewhat. Considering that celebi went through such trouble to make us do what it needed… I guess it had some plan if we weren't released in time. And of course, it means that we get to go slowly insane as the memories collide with one another."

"They really did plan for everything," she mumbled. "Have you remembered… or whatever it is, about Kanto yet?"

I shook my head. "No. Why?"

She looked away, blushing around her burns. "N-no reason," she said quickly. "They never come in order though, do they?"

"Nope," I said with a shake of my head. "One of the first I had was when we were in Iron Island… I think. The actual first one I had… it involved me being killed by some guy who was trying to feed his camp."

"Rough," she said with a wince. "So you're shiftry's going to be okay then?"

"Depends on how you view it." I grabbed her poké ball subconsciously. "She's still not really out of the hospital yet. She was out for the day Gemini left, but that was only a day trip. Otherwise, she still has to spend most days there in physio. She's getting better, but of course, she's also tempted to kill the doctors and skate out of the hospital on their bodies. And I'm pretty sure if she could, she would."

"Grass pokémon, huh?" she said with a smile. "My venusaur's pretty foul-mouthed, I've found out. When I'm able to understand what she's saying, there's usually not a single word that isn't actually a curse. Timothy – the spoink – is still pretty playful. They're the only two I've got left now anyway."

"That sucks," I said, not knowing what else _to_ say to that. "I guess you could always catch some more?"

"I've got a haunter too," she said with a grin. "In fact, I believe you might know it."

"I, what?" I said, tongue-tied. "The one Mia had?"

"The one that originally belonged to that gym leader, yeah. When that girl died, the haunter took off seeking someone else. She found me, recognised me and decided that she wanted to travel with me, rather than the person who killed her trainer."

I flinched and stared at the monochrome grey walls. "Thanks for reminding me like that."

"It's not your fault," Natasha told me. "We both did shit we'd have never really thought about doing because they nudged us in the right direction."

"It still only took just a nudge for me to do that," I muttered to the floor. "I lost Xander and Mia because of that place. There's nothing I can do that will make that better."

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," she said flippantly, standing up and brushing herself down. "We were nothing but tools then. It's like feeling bad for suffocating a person if someone else was holding your hands over their mouth."

"It's not that simple," I growled. "_I_ still did it."

She sighed and turned away. "We could argue about this forever. I'm fairly certain we will. But you know what? It doesn't matter. What's done is done. We did what we did, now it's time for _us_, not a puppet master pulling our strings but us ourselves to do something in this world. That haunter's busy becoming a gengar right now. Just like she's changing, so are we. Before you managed to kill the celebi, had you even thought of building an underground bunker in this place?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. Things aren't exactly clear where everything about that is concerned."

"Tell me about it. It's like my brain's only sixteen but it's experienced over three times that amount of life." She wiped a finger over the wall, frowned as she rubbed it against her thumb and looked around for her paintbrush. "But, I guess that's enough angsting about our lives. This paint's dried already, so we should probably carry on trying to paint this stupid wall."

"I suppose," I said, standing up and handing her back her paintbrush. "You think we can really change that much?"

"I don't see why not." She kicked the lid off her tin of paint and swirled the paint within. "I like to think that the celebi didn't decide everything about us. Have you ever even considered out names?"

"That they named us?" I asked. "I'm hoping it wasn't them."

"If it wasn't, then it's one hell of a coincidence. If it was, then either their massive fans of irony or something bigger's at work here."

"Why?"

She drew out her name on the wall. "Natasha Keeper. Keeper's an obvious meaning. But my first name? It means peace. My name is literally _'peacekeeper'._" She painted my name underneath and pointed towards it with her paintbrush. "Yours is a bit more subtle. Swift is an obvious meaning. Your first name? It originates from a name that means dove. A dove's the symbol for peace. So really, your name can be arranged as Swift peace."

I stopped painting; brush held in the air and stared at her, mouth open a little. "You've really done your research into this, haven't you?"

She smiled. "Well, finding out where a celebi keeps its stash of magical water isn't exactly the easiest task in the world. I get distracted sometimes. So either, the celebi thought it was funny to name two people some form of peace and have them destroy the world, or there's a bigger meaning behind everything."

"Maybe," I grunted. "But if we're named that for a reason the celebi didn't know of, doesn't that mean we're still just something's playthings?"

"You think things through too much," she said. "You're alive despite the fact you're not meant to be. Take that and keep that thought in the back of your mind all the time. It helps… knowing that… it makes the knowledge that one day I won't be able to tell fantasy from reality a bit better." She bit her lip and looked up at me. "Do me a favour? If I decline into madness like that before you, put me out of my misery?"

I smiled and mimed shooting my own head. "Only if you do the same for me."

She smirked. "Does it have to be only when you're crazy though?"

"Unless you want me coming back as a ghost and haunting you. And I'll be one of those really weird ghosts that just floats around you, making things happen so subtly you think you're going insane."

"Jackass."

I grinned. "And proud."

* * *

It was the end of the second month that the second change came about.

It was the one that saved my life.

The doctor coughed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well… this is… unusual, to put it best."

I frowned. "What is?"

He coughed and glanced between us. "Your blood types are a perfect match. The operation would be extremely complex and would carry a higher chance of mortality than it would a normal transplant but… it's perfectly feasible for you both to provide a donor organ for the other."

My eyebrows were nearly meeting my hair. My hands shook as I managed to grin at the girl sat next to me. "What do you reckon?"

She laughed and pulled her trilby a little over her face. "Have a part of you inside of me? It's something I thought I could go through my entire life without having to suffer."

My face fell. "_Very_ funny. You know what I mean."

She bit her lip and gestured for the information from the doctor. He handed them over to her and she read them all quickly. "I… well, it's not like we've got a lot of time to choose on this, do we? You realise that we'll both live with one lung and one kidney each afterwards?"

I shrugged. "Better that then being dead."

Her hand found mine. "You mean you'll do it?"

"Well, I don't exactly want to wind up dead by the end of the month," I said with a smirk. "And that machine I have to plug in is still making it hard to sleep each night. So I guess I can suffer carrying around one of your kidneys."

"Jackass," she said with a laugh. "Alright," she said, nodding at the doctor. "Sign me up. Replace these haggard old lungs of mine and give me one of his. Can you wash it first though?"

He laughed. "I'll see what I can do." He took the information from her and presented me with a form and a pen. "Sign here if you wish to go through with this."

It was a no-brainer.

_Sign here if you want to live._

Of course I signed the paper.

* * *

_If I have to deal with another lab coat wearing fool, I am going to feed him his own intestines._

The good thing that came out of all the time I spent with Lacey trying to help her regain everything that she had lost was that I could understand everything she said.

Of course, sometimes that wasn't exactly the best thing in the world.

_Trainer, kindly tell that woman if she tries to smear me with make-up again, I am going to lace it with something that will make her eyes melt out of her face._

I smiled nervously at the woman and kindly pushed her hand away. "I don't think my shiftry needs a pamper session, thanks."

_Moronic clod_, she said with a roll of her eyes. _Why are we here? You are to rest for another week, so the infernal doctors told you._

I smirked and looked around the shop for anything to distract myself with. And probably a toy for Loki to play with, rather than yet more dismembered pokémon. He still had the kabutops scythe hidden away in the Magma complex, slowly rotting and stinking the place out.

"I guess I like hospitals just about as much as you do," I told her. "Besides, I figured you could teach me a bit about things. You're used to growing everything you use, right? Surely you can tell when something's not good enough to use."

_Of course I can._ She waved a leafy hand at the various counters in the shop. _There is nothing good here. It is nothing but unrefined garbage._

"I'm trying to figure out how to get a little garden for you in the complex," I told her. "But at the moment, it's a bit easier said than done. You're still going to need someone to go with you if you want to plant stuff there. Just in case something attacks you."

She swiped at the air and made a very clear gesture. _I am not an invalid. I can defend myself._

"But what if you injure yourself and we don't know about it? I don't want to find out that you've bled to death somewhere without me knowing."

_There is not much strong enough near the site._ She cocked her head and made a few signs with her hands. _I can murder a grumpig without much effort. Machoke are easily dispatched with subtlety and surprise; two things I can do easily. The only problem lies with camerupt and I am not fool enough to slap one in the face._

I rubbed the back of my head. "Still though. I'd rather you didn't try to go out there on your own."

_Rather like you would keep us in the poké balls and never let us know what was happening when you were in trouble?_

I flinched away and laughed nervously. "Okay, so maybe I'm guilty of that. But I worry about you guys."

_Because clearly, we do not do the same for you._ She reached over and poked me in the stomach. I yelped and batted her hand away, holding my side tenderly. _Exactly my point. You are squishy and easily hurt. We are far sturdier than you expect from us. If you wish, I shall take the crazed ghost or the one-armed psychic with me. The insect gets tangled in my hair too often and the dragon sets fire to everything there is in the garden._

"Okay, fine," I said with a laugh. "Scar and Erra will stay behind whenever you go there. Anything you want to do while we're here?"

_Murder all these fools?_

"Aside from that."

She shrugged. _Nothing comes to mind. We should leave before more pokémon trainers come. Already a number wish to challenge me for a battle. I would gladly tear their pokémon apart, but alas humans do not seem to think of that as socially acceptable._

I looked around at her warning and found a number of people watching me a bit more intently than others. Their gazes kept getting drawn to Lacey and I decided that maybe her advice would be good to follow.

"Let's go then," I said and led her from the store. She happily left the place behind, glaring at anyone that came too close to her. "So… do you think I'm doing the right thing here? Making this place so that people can hide when the world goes to shit?"

_Define 'right'. Are you doing it because you wish to, or because you feel required to?_

I shrugged. "Well… originally I guess it was the second one. Now… it's more the first. When I started it was because I felt like it was a sort of penance for screwing up the world. Now it feels… it feels like I'm actually doing some good and I want to keep on."

_Then it is right. You should do something because it is what you wish to, not because you feel indebted to. Also, you will require copious amounts of bleach to rid the place of blood. A rug and a coat of paint will not suffice._

I laughed. "How do you always manage to spin things round to involve blood or gore?"

_It is my nature_, she said, holding a hand up to the sky and watching the sunlight crawl between her fingers. _Death intrigues me. Why build things as complex as pokémon or humans if they can die so easily? A cut here, a misstep there and they die. Many places argue that pokémon are made in the image of god and that humans are made in the image of another. Does that mean Gods themselves could fall as easily?_

"Not a clue," I told her. I slid my hands into my pockets and closed my eyes as the salty air of Lilycove sprayed over my face. The waves crashed somewhere nearby and a flock of wingull cawed from high on above. "Unless you're planning on attacking The Arceus or something, I doubt you'll ever need to know."

_It would be interesting to see how that battle would pan out._ She cracked her knuckles and pressed a hand to her chest. _Although, wounded as I am, I doubt it would end well for me. Walking up too many stairs tires my heart. I grow annoyed with how weak I am on occasion._

"At least you're not the only one with one lung though," I said with a smirk. "I traded mine off for a working kidney, remember? I've also only got one ear now. Alistair's got one arm, Erra's got just one eye… if Scar or Loki lose something, I guess we can just be a team that have only one of everything everyone else has a pair of."

_Many true words are said in jest. I propose that we do not tempt fate no more._

"Any more than we do on a daily basis?" I said, grinning. "I guess we might have to make a few changes there." I looked up to the sky, put to fingers into my mouth and whistled. Far above the clouds I heard a familiar roar and watched as orange descended from the heavens, charging back down to earth.

Scar flipped around and landed gently on the ground, wings beating a powerful tune. A dead pelipper hung from his mouth, bleeding down his chest. He threw it up into the air, roasted it with a jet of flames and snapped down on it as it fell. Little bits of gore splattered everywhere.

Lacey sighed and pulled entrails from around her nose. _You have all the table manners of a mentally retarded banette._ She flicked them back at him and they made a wet splat against his face.

I rubbed my temples in familiar weariness. "You'd think beating a time travelling devil would lead to a sense of class, really." I recalled Lacey and patted Scar on the side. "Alright buddy. Think you can make a quick flight over near Fortree? I want to see if we can find any tracks from Gemini's herd."

He snorted as he chewed his food.

"There's always a little bit of hope," I said, checking to make sure the saddle was secure. "Alright then," I said, tapping his side with my feet as soon as I was ready. "This time, don't anger a flock of altaria, alright?"

He snarled a laugh.

"It _wasn't_ funny! I nearly ended up falling to my death! I only have one lung now! I have to take it just a little bit easier than normal for a while!"

His response to that was to zoom into the air. I yelped and hugged his neck, heart thundering in my chest. "Evil lizard-dragon-thing."

* * *

"Still no signs?" Chris asked me when I arrived at her place.

I shook my head and tried to wipe the dead little bugs off my clothes. "Nothing."

"You'll find out where she went someday," she told me. "You can't expect to be able to see them that easily. They're naturally prey, not predators. They know how to hide themselves well."

"I suppose," I said, stealing an apple from her. "But I'd still rather know just whether or not she's alive."

She frowned, stole the apple back and took a massive bite out of it. "Some things take time."

"Nearly two months though? I'm still worried."

Chris smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. "You always will be, even if you know she's fine." She patted my back and gestured for me to follow her. "Come on, gotta show you something. Alistair seems to be learning quite well how to function with just one arm."

"If he's managing to do press-ups one handed, you owe me a drink."

She laughed. "It's better than that, trust me."

She led me through her house and towards the patio. I heard continuous growls and occasionally the odd human voice thrown in there for good effort.

"Can you believe it?" she asked me.

I honestly couldn't.

She'd set up an arm wrestling contest.

Using Alistair as the main opponent.

"If this was your idea, I'm going to beat you with your own fake arm," I told her.

She laughed. "All your gallade's my friend. I told him that when I realised my remaining arm had become so much stronger because of doing everything with it, he got this little idea into his head."

He was facing down a machoke at the time. The pokémon's trainer was leaping up at down behind it, screaming commands. In the end Alistair just smirked and threw the machoke's arm down with such force the pokémon went flying out of the chair and onto the concrete floor beneath.

_[Hello, sir!]_ he greeted cheerily as he saw me. _[Would you care to partake in the competition? It is rather fun.]_

I glanced at the long line of people and pokémon rubbing their injured arms and decided against it. "Maybe once I've fully healed, huh? I don't want you to rip open any of my stitches."

He nodded. _[As you wish sir. As an added bonus, the competition is drawing in enough revenue for you to use towards your project.]_

I turned to Chris. "What's he talking about?"

She smiled and pointed to a chalkboard behind her. "We decided to make the game a bit more interesting. Myself or one of the people here checks out the condition of the pokémon being entered and from that, we draw up a figure on whether they'll win or lose. If a trained pokémon wins, they get to take half of the bets placed on Alistair. Betting if their pokémon is competing isn't allowed; only spectators can bet. So far… well I'm honestly upset I didn't think of this scheme sooner, because it would have made my life so much easier a few years ago."

I could only laugh at the spectacle. "This is… it's just insane. I have a hard time believing Alistair was the brains behind all of this. More than that," – I lowered my voice to a whisper –"Isn't this illegal?"

"It sure is."

I turned and found a familiar looking woman stood nearby. She had blonde hair cropped extremely short, but the blue eyes and general air of confidence gave her away.

Chris' mouth fell open just a little before she managed to recover. "I don't know what you're talking about. This is simply a sporting competition between-"

"Save it," the woman said. She flicked out a hand with a bright green bill wedged between her fingers. "And put me down for a hundred on the medicham. What can I say?" She laughed at our shocked looks. "I like a challenge."

"_Marsha?"_ I breathed, completely shocked. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She smiled and hugged me. "Well, I did hear from a friend that this is one of the best breeding facilities in Hoenn," she said with a pointed glance to me and then Chris.

Chris' mouth dropped open a bit more. "You mean you've been advertising me with your friends?" She barked a laugh and slapped me on the back. "Keep it up. I can do with the custom. Marsha, huh? Chris, good to meet you."

Marsha grinned and shook her hand. "Likewise, I'm sure. Actually, I'm here to chat to our mutual friend. Mind if I steal him from you?"

I shrugged. "Chris can stay if she wants; she knows everything about me anyway."

She laughed and shook her head. "No, I'm fine. I need to register this new bet and kick Alistair's butt so he doesn't lose to this medicham."

Marsha just smirked and grabbed my arm. "Always been a sucker for something that's against the odds." She dragged me away and finally, when she decided we were far enough away, poked me square in the chest. "Moron," she hissed.

"_Ow_," I growled. "Recovering from an operation here. Why am I a moron?"

She sighed and slapped me around the head. "Uh, _hello?_ First, you didn't let me know you were even damn well alive after fighting what you did. Secondly, you didn't let me know you were having a serious operation. Thirdly, what kind of idiot sends a letter detailing information about how a company might be not all it seems, to a person who works for said company, without even using some kind of code?"

I turned bright red and rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. "Okay, on the last count, yes, I'm a moron. The others? I thought your people were hunting me. I didn't think you'd want them knowing you knew me."

"That doesn't matter now anyway," she said with a shrug. "I read your letter and after that, a few things made sense. A couple of my bosses occasionally have claimed they've been somewhere they haven't been on a few nights or even days. Of course, at the time, I thought; _affair, _but after I read your letter, I did some digging and found out even that wasn't the case. That and it always seems to be people that have gotten too far in certain investigations. It just felt like I'd be saving my brain from an extra passenger if I retired early."

She smiled and leant back against the wall. "Pretty retirement bonus too. Of course, now I'm freelance, doing what I want, being hired by whomever. Mostly scorned women wanting to find out if their husbands are cheating, but it's safer and more importantly; I get to see my girlfriend more often. So, I figured I owed you after that."

I laughed self-consciously. "Don't worry about it. I just thought you should know something about that."

"Well, I did worry about it," she declared. She reached into a pocket, pulled out a cigarette and happily sparked up. "As of three days ago, the paperwork and files for the investigation into you have officially gone… _missing._"

"Missing?" I felt my mouth drop open. "Can't you get into a lot of shit for that?"

She smirked. "Not when it appears to be nothing but a plumbing error. It's easy enough really; have a pokémon freeze a specific bit of plumbing. Water pressure builds up behind it. Pipes burst, water soaks everything. Computers, paper files, even back up computers. Conveniently, I'd backed up everything the night before. Everything, except of course-"

"The investigation into me," I finished for her. At her nod I laughed and hugged her. "You're pretty awesome, you know that?"

"I do," she said shamelessly. "So, this Chris?"

I grinned. "She doesn't swing that way, I'm afraid."

Marsha laughed and punched my shoulder. "That wasn't on my mind. Dolt. I wanted to know if you can convince her to give me a friend's discount. I find myself in the position of having to find a pokémon for my nephew and I wish to see just how this friend of yours lives up to your advertising."

I made a show of sighing and pretending like she was putting me out. "I suppose I could look into it for you. Oh and by the way?"

"What?"

"The medicham lost."

She laughed. "Damn. That's what I get for betting on the underdog."

* * *

The third month brought Erra unexpectedly being ready to evolve.

I played with her self-sealed poké ball and tried to figure out how long she'd be out of action for.

"I'm still waiting for my gengar," Natasha told me. "But the stronger they are, the longer pokémon take to evolve, don't they?"

"So hopefully she shouldn't take that long. I'm guessing that fighting an army of ancient pokémon helped make her a lot stronger too."

"There's always that," Chris said. She threw a disc on the table. "Raise twenty."

"I hate your poker face," Jonathon moaned. At the sharp look she gave him, he quickly paled. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with your face, of _course_, but…"

I made a whip noise. He blushed and glared back at me. Chris' death glare settled on me as Marsha sat next to them both, cackling like a lunatic. Amanda, Chris' employee sat next to her and Simon, Adryan's boyfriend was next to her.

"I think that's his tell," Marsha said as she threw a chip in the middle of the table. "Every time he's got time to think, he plays with her poké ball. So either he knows he's got a good hand, or he actually knows what those cards mean. So you've got a double, don't you?"

I tried to keep my face a stone. I _did_ have a pair of three's, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

Unfortunately, the burning tips of my ears proved to be my undoing.

"He does!" Natasha cackled. "The tops of his ears always go bright red when he's caught out on something."

Chris laughed and dealt a card. "Interesting that you know him so well. Care to share? Have you two been doing the nasty?"

It was Natasha's turn to go bright red. "I don't think so. I've already got enough of him inside my body, thank you very much. It's weird to know you've got a bit of someone else inside of you."

Marsha barked a laugh. "You've lost me there."

"I get the feeling there's a really lame joke here," Amanda said. She frowned at her cards and sighed. "Fold. So, a gay guy, a lesbian, an interracial couple, a guy with one ear and a girl with burns are sat at a poker table."

"So what's the punch line then?" Simon asked.

"It's the line I stand behind and punch you from if you keep looking at my cards," Marsha deadpanned.

Chris snorted out most of her drink. "Know what that reminds me of? _'You know what the chain of command is?'"_

"_It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til you understand who's in ruttin' command here!"_ everyone but me and Natasha said at once. They all burst into laughter and left us looking at each other, equally confused and wondering if we'd missing something incredibly important.

Chris nudged me in the side. "You've got all the time in the world now. You've got to watch it. It's awesome."

"I'll make a note of that." I glared at my cards as she put another on the table and lost all hope of ever being able to win any of my money back. "That's you know, maybe after I go and enter a championship to win back my money."

"Why don't you?" Chris asked, smiling all the while. "Your pokémon are strong enough now. Get two more, get the remaining badges and I'm sure you'll be strong enough to get through to at least the quarter finals."

I made a face. "I dunno. Don't they have some sort of limit on people that can compete?"

"You'll be fine," Marsha said with a smile. "Damn, I fold. Just enough for a cig break! Back in a few." She pointed at Jon. "Don't steal any of my drink. I know it's you. If I find that's gone down even a little, I'm going to make you experience pain on a new level."

"Kinky," he snorted. "Chris, what do you say?"

"If she wants to murder you, I'll happily give her an alibi," she laughed.

"Back to the other conversation, you'll still be able to enter the tournament," Simon said. "Although there's the official cut off point, from a legal point of view, they can and have to accept people until the battles have been officially announced. What?" he asked as everyone looked at him. "I'm a lawyer."

"Do they have much cause for pokémon law?" Amanda asked him.

"You wouldn't believe," he said with a roll of his eyes. "In fact, there was this one case in Unova, where this trainer snuck into a party thrown by the gym leaders and had their icy pokémon create phallic shaped ice cubes for the punch."

Marsha choked on her drink. "With that, I'm going to quickly go smoke," she said, turning bright red.

"No way," I said, grinning as she ran out of the room. "You don't think?"

"Penis-shaped ice cubes?" Chris roared with laughter. "That's _amazing_! At a big party like that? Oh, I'd have loved to have seen people's faces when they saw little ice-willies floating in their drinks!"

"Apparently they turned it into a competition," Simon told us. "Supposedly, once a few people had drank enough, they decided to see who could fit the most in their mouth at once."

Chris laughed and then elbowed Jonathon in the stomach. "Don't even think of saying anything to that."

"I wasn't!" he gasped.

"So, how are your pokémon?" Amanda asked me, clearly hoping for a distraction.

I smiled. "Loki's as insane as ever. Alistair's trying to teach him to speak using psychic powers. Lacey can't battle anymore, but she's adapting. As I'm sure you've seen, Alistair is launching his own arm-wrestling career from Chris' back yard and Scar seems to be overjoyed every time he gets to take flight. He's still as serious as ever when needs be, but now it's like he's learnt how to have a good time on top of it. And then Erra's locked away in her ball awaiting evolution."

I turned my head to look at Chris. "Are you sure I could actually enter a championship, even now?"

She grunted a yes. "Even with only four pokémon, you'd still get far. Your pokémon are pretty damn strong too; you're operating at maybe about seven, eight badge level with Loki and Erra, maybe seventeen upwards with Alistair and Scar. Even if you don't get all that far, you still get money for competing."

"It's worth thinking about," Natasha said. "Everything we're doing doesn't come free, after all. Even if it is for the greater good and all that. Unless you plan on having your sableye learn how to rob banks…"

"I could always try that," I said. "He robs enough as it is."

"I'm so not a part of this conversation," Simon groaned, burying his face on the table and hiding his head under his hands.

"Square," Marsha said as she came back into the room. "But of course, you'd have to think of a few things past just getting him out with stacks of cash."

I smirked. "I guess we should take advice from you, Miss Prankmaster."

She turned bright red again and looked away. "I have _no_ idea what you're talking about!"

Amanda looked between us all, perplexed. "Is everyone in this friend group missing a brain?"

Simon looked up and sighed. "It certainly seems to be a prerequisite."

* * *

_[Master! Master! Loki knows… talk!]_

I laughed, scooped him up and rubbed his head. "You certainly do! Can you say anything else?"

He twitched, gargled and came up with nothing.

"It's alright," I told him, rubbing his head again. "I pretty much understand most of what you say now anyway. It's just nice to hear you actually speaking the same language as me."

He grinned and pointed between us.

"No, I don't think I'll ever be able to speak your language. I'm not quite smart enough."

He sighed, ears drooping. Almost instantly he leapt out of my arms and ran down the familiar hallways, hopping into shadows and letting his laugh echo down through the halls.

"How many badges now then?" Natasha asked from a nearby room.

I stopped at the doorway and looked in. A number of metallic bunk beds lined the walls of the room. It had cost enough money to put it all together, but it was something I enjoyed doing. Marsha had even put the word out that a few psychics had predicted bad things were going to happen and certain people she knew were helping out on other projects over the country, as well as in places like Unova and Sinnoh.

"I've gotten three more so far," I told her, spinning my new pokédex in my palm. "I beat Melissa, the ghost leader, Jessica, you know, the dark one? And I've just managed to beat Flannery too. I pretty much just used Loki, but I let Alistair fight against one of her blaziken. He seemed to enjoy battling another fighter."

"And while you've been out there battling away, I've been in here, slaving away at this project," she sighed dramatically. "We should really engrave our names somewhere in here. Let people know that we're the ones behind all of this."

"Behind what?" I said, leaning on the doorframe. "The bunkers or the dooming the world part?"

She shrugged. "Both. Give them the whole story. We're not heroes; we started doing this because we felt bad. Now we do it because we enjoy it. People deserve to know the truth, warts and all, even if we don't want to admit it.

"I really don't like it when you make sense."

She grinned and spun a wrench in her hand. "Well too bad, because I make sense all the time! Now are you going to help me with this place or what?"

"I just sorted out most of the plumbing in the kitchen," I told her. "It's a big place actually, at least we don't need to change that and the bathrooms round. All we need to do is add a common room sort of thing, hook a few security cameras up into this power generator, get a safety perimeter set up around the garden and probably secure a line from the mountain to here and we're home free."

She sat down on the floor with a sigh. "Isn't that water going to the hot springs in Lavaridge at the moment?"

"Somewhat," I said with a shrug. "If we can lay some pipework along the way, it means they'd have a constant source of hot water. They'd just need to leave it to cool in order to drink it. Or maybe we could figure something out that could let one part of it be colder for people to actually drink…"

She barked a laugh. "Slow down there soldier! We're not engineers. Everything we've done really has been aesthetic or assembling something that was flat packed. Maybe we should stick to what we know in order to help."

"Like killing people you mean?"

"So we learn new skills!" She bounced to her feet. "Come on, I mean, we've gone through the whole ordeal of swapping a lung and a kidney just so we've got a bit more time before we die. So until the walls in our brains fall down and we go completely insane, why don't we go out into the world and try to help out?"

I sat down on one of the beds. "Like what?"

"I don't know yet!" She sighed and sat down next to me. "I just feel like we could be doing something other than working in this gloomy place all day. We still don't know who massacred everything down here. If you ask me, that's a bit of a high-stakes question."

"What do we do then? Sing campfire songs?"

She chuckled. "It's a start."

* * *

"I'm actually amazed he's still standing, let alone even able to damn well _fly_."

I watched Scar as he flew around in circles far above us, twisting and shaping the clouds behind him. Every so often he'd roar and send a small group of birds scattering towards the horizon.

Chris made a face and rubbed her temples. "He's so damn _virile_ it's unreal. Almost every female he can breed with, he's knocked up. I've got eggs popping out of pokémon faster than I can sell them."

I found myself grinning. "Any going spare? I wouldn't mind having a new pokémon."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you really going to be able to look after a baby pokémon? Raise it, teach it and just generally baby it for the first few weeks?"

"Urm… maybe not then."

"I thought as much." She sighed and slammed her fist down on a piece of paper because it could float away in the wind. "So you're taking him off my hands then? I'm kinda glad. In a way, I'm not; he's really good with the younger pokémon and he teaches them lots. With that in mind, he's a blessing. But if he spreads his seed into another one of my pokémon I'm seriously going to give him a vasectomy."

"I'm taking him off your hands, don't worry," I said quickly, knowing he wouldn't like that. "I'll talk to him; see if I can get him to calm down a little. Or at least go crazy parenting little charmanders or whatever with wild pokémon."

"There's a few laws there," Chris told me. "Pokémon trainers aren't really meant to release their pokémon anywhere that they don't normally inhabit. For the same reason, they're not really meant to let their pokémon breed with anything they wouldn't usually encounter. If there's a feraligatr near a stream that suddenly has a few too many charmander babies, things could go a bit wrong."

She finished writing a letter, sealed it and handed it to me. "Take this with you, will you? I know he can't actually read it… but there's a little bit of me that likes to believe he can. Ripper will be there anyway, maybe he'll be able to do something about it."

"Will do," I said, pocketing the letter. "Is it alright if I leave Erra here? She's still getting used to magneton form."

"Sure, sure," Chris said with a wave of her hand. "I'm looking after one at the moment anyway, I'll introduce them. You'll be able to take a few pokémon here to train them, won't you?"

"Course, same as ever. I'm not going to just dump my pokémon on you and not expect to get it all for free." I smiled and nodded in Alistair's direction. "And of course, you have him attracting crowds now. Seems you're getting a lot of popularity out of this too."

"I know," she said with a laugh. "Brawly contacted me the other day. Or at least, one of his people. Not only does he want to come to try out a match against Alistair, but he wants to know if he can loan him for a couple of weeks to help out in his gym."

"Wow," I said, staring like a hoothoot. "That's… something. And gym leaders can do that?"

"Oh yeah," she said with a nod. "There's a few breeding locations that often have really strong pokémon livestock on their grounds. Sometimes a gym leader will request to loan one for a little while for all sorts of purposes. It works brilliantly both ways; the pokémon gets training experience under a gym leader, the gym gets a strong, new pokémon to play with. And of course, the breeding centre gets publicity and a good rapport with the gym leader.

"Brawly said if things go well, he'll happily loan out his stronger pokémon to me as studs," she said with a huge grin. "He gets first pick of the eggs, naturally, but it means he'll endorse this place and soon I'll have requests for eggs and day care services coming out of my ears."

I laughed. "Sure you'll be able to manage it?"

She sighed. "Honestly? No idea. Most of my work force now is local interns. Work experience and brilliant references for them, relatively free labour for me. If I ever got enough money to open up another centre… I'm not sure if I could keep things going the same way."

I shrugged and rescued another of her papers from the wind. "I think you should. You've built yourself up doing that; you seem to be the only place that does so. It means you'll probably have internship applications coming through your ears too, considering that it's so hard for them to get a placement or anything, isn't it?"

"I suppose," she said, taking the paper back off me. "If nothing else, it'll make me popular with the students." Another gust of wind came along and rattled her papers. "Why I chose to sit outside and do this today is beyond me. I guess it's back to my gloomy cave-office. Come back tomorrow for Erra and I'll see what pokémon I can let you train. Something dark or icy, most likely."

"Sure thing," I said, waited until she went inside and whistled for Scar. He answered with a roar and circled down from the heavens, landing before me with a light thump. I told him where I wanted to go as I climbed into the saddle. He acknowledged it with a snort, stared over at Alistair and shared a silent conversation with him before taking to the skies.

"You get along well with him now, don't you?" I shouted above the winds.

He grunted. A little series of snarls told me everything.

"I guess all that time together in the past really made you two depend on each other." I looked away from him and stared at the landscape below, flittering past like runny paint smears on a board. "And then you both come back to help me and he loses an arm in the process."

Scar huffed out a cloud of smoke.

"Really? So how many times did you both nearly lose a limb?"

He snarled and tapped the side of his head.

"Yeah, I suppose I am better off not knowing." I sighed and adjusted myself slightly in the saddle, watching everything pass me below. A little tropius family came close enough for us to ride alongside until one of them nearly flew into Scar's tail and got scared off by the flame.

It took a couple of hours for us to get where we needed to go. I patted Scar on the side and let him take off to the sky once more as I made my way along the pathway on shaky, somewhat locked-into-place legs.

Another part of my pilgrimage; Mount Pyre.

I knew the little memorial I'd set up for Xander was on the fifth floor. That wasn't why I was visiting though.

When Adryan had died, his ashes had been scattered to a number of places.

One of the main reasons behind a few were that they were the places he had first met each of his pokémon.

"_It was many years ago now," _Ripper said as he floated into view. His presence wasn't a surprise to me; I was only surprised that it had taken him so long to approach me.

He rotated slowly in the air and pointed up a set of impossibly clean stairs. _"Above lay the orbs of emerald, ruby and sapphire. I was but a dusclops then, intrigued as to why a small human child would try to sneak up so many stairs, only for a glimpse of mythical objects. When I found Master Adryan there, staring at the jewels, I asked him why he risked punishment for only a glance of something otherwise so mundane."_

I followed Ripper as he floated above the glistening, dew-covered grass. "What did he say then?"

He laughed; an ethereal, haunting sound. _"He said he wanted to see what helped people to become heroes. He may have grown out of the idea through reality as he got older, but he never gave up on the dream of being able to become a hero. We were his partners in all such endeavours. Which makes what we conspired so much worse."_

I froze on the spot, suddenly cold. It was almost as if a gengar were dancing in my shadow.

I checked, just to make sure there wasn't.

"What are you talking about?"

He sighed. _"I am sure that you remember after Master Adryan learnt of your… arrival into this world, you witnessed me conversing at length with your nuzleaf."_

I nodded slowly. "She's a shiftry now, but yeah… I remember that. That was before everything with Adryan's rapidash happened, wasn't it?"

"_Correct." _Ripper's eye floated down to stare at the ground. _"When Myos transferred the memories you held, I sensed something was amiss with Master Adryan. I am a dusknoir; we are sensitive to matters concerning death, you see. I knew that something had changed within him; not a physical change, but something that felt… wrong, for want of a better term."_

I found myself wanting to sit down on the grass. Instead I opted for an ancient tombstone who's text had long since weathered away. "You knew something was wrong? That transferring those memories would lead him into dying eventually?"

Ripper shrugged. _"Not exactly. I knew something was wrong. Something that would lead him down a path he would not survive. I spoke at length with the other pokémon. Willow took it the hardest and wished to kill you then and there. We convinced her only to attempt to frighten you off. We did not know what had caused it, but we deduced that you were somehow involved, even if it was not direct."_

He sighed and moved so that he was floating above a tombstone. It looked like he was a spectre rising from the grave, which would have made me laugh had the conversation not been so serious.

"_We knew something Master Adryan did not. We knew we could not tell him, because he would not believe it. We knew we could not convince him to abandon you, because your plight brought forth his dreams of being a hero once more."_ The ghost sighed and waved his hands softly over a tombstone. _"We had only one additional piece of information he did not know. Lucy was dying. She was old and unknown to Master Adryan, ill-bred. She had a genetic disease that would kill her within the month."_

"So… his rapidash's murder was essentially… even more pointless?"

"_Not quite. And there is no need to be coy. I know your pokémon killed her. I was the one that convinced her to do the deed."_

"I-you-what?"

He looked down at the floor again. _"It is true. I thought it the best scenario; that her murder would prove to him that he should not spend time with you. Lucy was dying; she volunteered for the task. She did not wish to wither away and lose herself before finally dying. I hypnotised her so she felt no pain, then your pokémon killed her."_

I felt like I needed to sit down. I already was, but it didn't seem to register. "That… at least I know why she did it now. But… why'd you set it up? That man took all the blame!"

"_His appearance was… an unfortunate coincidence,"_ Ripper said, closing his eye. _"Master Adryan was meant to discover that your nuzleaf committed the act. It was supposed to convince him to leave you and abandon the goals that would eventually kill him. Alas, it appears that the particular celebi was a greater manipulator than I."_

He looked back up the gleaming stairs, seemingly able to see past the fog that clouded the area above. _"I come here often, to seek his forgiveness. Even though we dusknoir are so in touch with death, able to sense it and guide the spirits, we are unable to contact them after they have moved on. Even I do not know how he feels on such a matter."_

I looked at the floor, swinging my legs to and fro. Finally I jumped off the tombstone and met his eye. "For what it's worth, I don't blame you. And if Adryan could forgive me for freaking out and hurting him to keep him safe, I'm sure he can forgive you too."

He looked away, eye glistening. _"Perhaps. I suppose that you too have come to offer words to him. I shall respect your privacy and leave you in piece."_

"Thanks," I said as he started to float away. "Wait!" I called after him, fumbling in a pocket. "Chris gave me this," I said, offering him her letter. "She said that she knows Adryan can't read it and that there's almost no chance of him ever being able to see what she's written. But she thought that maybe, you'd know a way to pass along the message?"

He took it from my grasp, his touch lighter than air. _"I do not. However, I know those that are even older than I am. Tell her that I shall do my best to find a way for her message to cross the planes."_

"Thanks Ripper. You're a lifesaver."

He gave me a look that could make puppies cry. _"Not quite a good enough one, it seems."_

* * *

The fourth month brought the end to my second attempt at a badge-quest. It meant that I had to spend too much time away from what I enjoyed doing and not enough time getting to be around the people I liked.

It also meant I had to treat Lacey completely differently to the other pokémon. She didn't like the idea one bit and frequently pointed such a matter out to me.

_We should try and f-find Ge-Gemini again sometime soon._

I hummed a non-committal response and reached over to scratch Erra's back. She buzzed in contentment, otherwise busying herself with annihilating faulty wiring.

She clicked a series of tunes that I found myself able to completely understand.

_It's b-been so long. D-does she m-miss us?_

"I like to think so," I said with a frown. I couldn't say for sure one way or the other. I'd tried multiple times to find some trace of her or her herd, but always came back empty handed.

_I m-miss there b-being six of us._

"So do I."

She floated over and landed on my back, manipulating her weight so as to not make me collapse under it. _Why d-don't we g-get another then? I want a n-new b-brother or sister._

"It's not quite as simple as that," I said with a small smile. "It means going out to catch a new pokémon, training it to like us and just generally making sure it doesn't try to eat us. Of course, it doesn't help that I can't exactly squeeze one out myself."

_You could try though?_

I laughed. "Somehow, I don't think _anyone_ would want to befriend anything I squeezed out."

She huffed and floated away, zapping a few more panels on the wall. _It is done,_ she told me afterwards. _Find us another b-brother or sister, Trainer. It worries us that you try to do so much without regards for your life._

She flew off elsewhere and left me with that thought to chew on. I fell down on a bed and looked around at the old Magma base.

If it could be called that anymore.

It was, essentially, a nuclear bunker built to withstand who-knew-how-much punishment. Everything in there was complete.

Almost.

All there was left to do was finally leave a complete report on how everything had come to pass and why the place was being built. _She_ was off elsewhere in the country, trying to build herself a pokémon team and sightsee at the same time. She said that she wasn't ever going to go that far and that whenever there was another project like that, she'd be willing to help out. Otherwise, she needed some space away from me, she said.

I stayed on the bed for a while, staring at the mattress above my head and just trying to imagine people living there for real. Pictures, fake memories of a future that might not happen drifted into my head, telling me what it thought I had experienced. They were the closest I could imagine to the truth; hundreds of people clustered in spaces like the base, without real running water or anything serviceable. By the standards of the current world, it was squalor.

But by the standards of the world I'd been brought up to believe was my own, it was just life.

With that thought playing in my mind, I decided it was time to change around just what I called life.

* * *

I went down, pain exploding against my head as missiles continued soaring above.

Nearby, people were screaming for mercy.

Dazed, I rubbed my head and dislodged graceful white powder from my hat. I sat up and scowled in the direction of my attacker.

Almost camouflaged in the snow, Lacey threw back her head in a laugh. Even at such a distance, I could understand her perfectly.

_I may not be able to battle, but I am still far stronger than you!_

I growled at her, scooped up a pile of snow and found Loki staring up at me from underneath. He cocked his head with a grunt. I stared at him for a long moment, wondering if what I was seeing was real.

Then he leapt up with a screech, threw a snowball in my face and ran away screaming.

I cursed; wiped snow from my face and chased after him. He squealed and hid in a massive pile of snow, disappearing into the shadows within. I cursed again, grabbed another handful of snow and threw it with deadly accuracy at my target.

Alistair raised a hand and caught the snowball in a psychic grasp.

I glared and pointed wildly at the floating snowball. "That's cheating!

_[No,]_ he said with a smirk, _[this is.]_

He made a gesture and something above me rumbled. I looked up in time to see I was stood underneath a tree.

Then a mountain of snow buried me.

I coughed and clawed my way out of a snowy grave. Buried at the bottom, only my face was poking out of the snow. I glared up at Alistair as he smirked again in my direction. Lacey appeared behind him and smacked him in the back of the head with a snowball. He toppled over, face first and glared back at her.

Loki scampered past, arms up and screaming all the while. Erra was chasing after him, hitting the ground with sonic blasts and creating little showers of snow that buried the sableye.

A few hundred yards away from us all, Scar roared and continued to try and escape the igloo we'd trapped him in.

Lacey smirked and raised a hand triumphantly, just as Alistair appeared behind her, a mountain of snow held in his psychic grasp. Her eyes nearly burst out of her face just before he dropped the pile on top of her.

I burst out laughing at the sight, even though I was in the same predicament. Alistair smirked and leant back on the new pile of snow, tutting as Lacey poked her head out and cursed the air blue. Loki leapt up at him, cackled and stuffed the head of a snowman over Alistair's own. The gallade fell back, snowy head breaking, yet the carrot nose somehow remaining in place.

Loki fell over laughing just in time for Erra to cover him in a pile of snow. Last one standing, she flipped around in the air, landed atop Lacey's burial mound and announced her victory to the world.

"I leave you alone for five minutes and this happens." Marsha sighed as she sat down next to my head and blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air. "So how you liking Unova so far then?"

I grinned. "It's cold. I like it. I'd like it more if I wasn't trapped under all of this snow."

"Wimp," she accused, but stood up and pulled me out by my coat anyway. She laughed as I remained there on the floor and sat back down on the now unoccupied pile of snow. "See? Winter in Icirrus is pretty damn awesome, isn't it?"

"It is," I agreed. "Though I think it'll be my pokémon's last if they keep up these snowball fights. Eventually one of them is going to kill the other."

"Probably," Marsha agreed. "And how the hell is your charizard stuck in an igloo?"

I barked out a laugh. "There was a trainer nearby with one of those weird ice cream pokémon. We had it freeze the ice cold enough that fire would take a long time to melt it."

She chuckled. "You know he's probably going to melt every fleck of snow he sees from now on then?"

I shrugged. "I can live with that."

"You say that now." She flicked the remains of her cigarette away and pulled the hood of her coat a little bit tighter around her head. "Well, anyway, I'm going to go. I'm meeting my girlfriend for dinner in an hour, so I need to go get ready. Understandably, you're not invited." She smirked and jabbed me in the ribs. "I don't think she's ready to have to deal with someone like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, feigning anger. "I helped you find that missing woman, didn't I?"

"Only because you _fell_ _over_ her corpse," she bit back. Her face quickly melted into a smile afterwards. "I mean more with the insane backstory and the general aversion to doing things legal. You're lucky I can see things the way I do; she sees the world as being a lot less grey than we do."

There was the sound of glass smashing somewhere nearby and an angry roar afterwards.

"There's also _that_. You have the strangest luck with pokémon I've ever seen."

I sighed and pushed myself to my feet, gesturing for Loki and Erra to follow me. Somehow Marsha had convinced me to capture a new pokémon whilst I was visiting Unova. She was a great pokémon that I'd managed to train pretty quickly.

Well, more or less.

I found my way to her, right next to a disused shop with broken windows. She sniffed at it, caught me approaching and gave me a look as if to say _'it wasn't me.'_

"Who else was it then?"

She shrugged and pawed at the doors on the building. Overcompensating, she pressed to hard and collapsed through them. She quickly leapt back up, jumped away from them and sat a distance away, pretending that she hadn't ever gone near them.

"I _saw_ you do that," I sighed.

She maintained innocence.

I shook my head and buried it in a hand. "You know what? Just… go play with Alistair and the others. Bury them under some more snow or something. Just try not to break anything else."

She growled, stomped up to me and stopped to lick my forehead. Then she padded on past, roaring at the swirling snow and announcing her intention to take on all comers. Her roar echoed past a few trees and the resulting sound waves caused a few metres of snow to drop from the trees. She leapt away from it, glanced back at me, claiming innocence and quickly trotted on past the latest site of her destruction.

"You were the one who wanted a new sister," I growled at Erra. "This is all on you."

_It's not my f-fault!_ She hopped up and down in mid-air, squeaking wildly. _You caught her! Your f-fault!_

_[Master's fault! Master's fault!]_ Loki sang, jumping up and down on the spot.

I groaned and decided to catch up to my other pokémon. At least they wouldn't blame me for everything.

I hoped.

My latest pokémon roared as she tried to climb up a tree, swatting at the heracross nestled within. With a loud snap, the tree broke and fell down, making a resounding _boom_ in the landscape. She leapt away from the fallen tree, pretending that she'd never been there as she hid in the snow.

I sighed. At least she was aptly named. "Wrex! Get your ass back here and stop destroying shit!"

* * *

"I'm pretty sure these caverns get quieter every time I come down here."

Alistair shrugged by my side. _[Perhaps it is the routes you are taking. You are still not permitted in here, is that not true?]_

"Why else do you think I sneak down here every time?" I shook my head and motioned for Erra. She leapt at the dodrio stalking us, hissing and spitting lightning. The bird shrieked, stabbed at her with all three beaks but came off mostly worse. Erra clamped herself down on the middle neck, bit down and tore free a chunk of flesh and electrocuted the thing to death before it could bleed there first.

Up ahead, Wrex stood over her frozen butterfree. She tapped it with a paw and it shattered into messy, icy chunks. She jumped away from it with a snarl, batted the largest piece and made her way quickly past it. She seemed to be a firm believer in the phrase _'it was like that when I got here'._

Even if it happened to be complete bull.

I felt for the poké balls on my chest, relieved that the three occupied ones were still there. I remembered coming here before and having some strange dream that I'd lost them. More than that, I couldn't recall. I knew there was something down in the cavernous halls and tunnels that I'd forgotten, yet every time I progressed further through them, I seemed to be moving further away from what I sought.

"Are you sure there's nothing I should remember down here, Alistair?" I asked him, tracing my fingers across the walls. I pulled them back as somewhere down the wall something spurted out yellow fumes.

_[I cannot say, sir,]_ he said quietly. _[You were with Miss Gemini when you were down here last. If there was anything, I am sure she would know.]_

"Maybe you're right," I agreed. "Come on, we should probably turn around and leave before we get too much further in."

Predictably, there was a roar further in. Wrex came bounding back seconds later, terror in her eyes, panic in her voice. She threw a glance backwards, snarled at the darkness and sat down beside me, waiting for me to deal with her problem.

I sighed to keep up the façade of indifference. "What's she angered this time?"

She whined as if to say it wasn't her fault.

I seriously doubted that.

_[Just a machoke. And its mate.]_

"Brilliant," I growled, letting Scar and Loki loose. "Go with Alistair and make sure whatever Wrex has annoyed isn't chasing us, would you? If it is, deal with it."

I turned away as they went deeper into the tunnels. Erra floated by my side, light beaming from her. She settled on the wall and scuttled a few paces ahead, keeping me within her light all the while.

"What am I going to do with you?" I asked Wrex.

She cocked her head and did her best to give me a confused look. When she realised it wasn't going to work, she grunted and moved a few paces down the tunnel. Finding a boulder, she reared up and leant her forepaws down on it.

With a loud crack, the boulder shattered and rained debris down on the floor. From underneath, a little crab waved its pincers angrily and scuttled off down the corridors, hissing all the while.

Wrex batted a piece of the debris and glanced up at me with a familiar look.

"Sure," I sighed. "That _totally_ wasn't your fault either."

* * *

The fifth month was when we first slept together.

"Does it ever strike you as weird?" she said randomly, staring up at the ceiling.

"What?" I asked, trying to figure out what she was staring at.

She made a gesture. "That in those weird images of the future, we were married."

"I try not to think about it," I grunted.

Her head shot round at me, but she tried her best not to leap up. If she moved away from me anymore, she wouldn't have been in the bed at all. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I sighed and shut my eyes. "It means that I try not to think about it. Everything that celebi did was for a purpose. What if us being together was a part of that purpose to?"

She sat up and drew the covers around herself. "You didn't seem to mind that ten minutes ago."

I threw a hand to my face. "That's not what I mean and you know it. The celebi set up so much about us; our tasks, our personalities, even how we'd react to things! I can't help but shake the thought that if we'd been brought out of wherever they kept us later, we'd have been some sort of warped version of Bonnie and Clyde."

"That's all you ever think about, isn't it? 'Oh, the celebi might have set this up. It might have set that up'. Don't you ever think about something else?"

"It's hard to! It damn well controlled us for so long, don't you think there might be something that it had working, just in case it did die?"

She growled and snapped her gaze away. "No. Because you know what? The past is past. It shapes who we are. Without it, we wouldn't be here today, doing what we're. There's no point regretting what's done because otherwise, we wouldn't be who we are now." She shook her head, reached down to the floor, picked up and put on a shirt that covered from neck to knee. "Maybe you should realise that." She stalked out of the room and flung the door wide open even after she'd left. "Oh and your stupid beartic's brought in more dead things!"

I placed a pillow over my head and screamed into it. I felt a weight drop on the bed and lifted up the pillow to find Wrex laying her head and forepaws on the bed, staring at my face.

"Nothing's ever simple, is it?" I asked her, reaching over to scratch her behind the ears.

She growled, flicked her ears and prodded my side with a paw. As I looked to see what she meant, she dropped down to the floor, reappeared a second later and dropped the remains of a half-eaten swablu onto my bed.

I pulled a face and tried to inch away from the squishy insides that were brushing against my chest. "Urm, thanks. I'll have to cook it first to eat it."

She flicked her ears, making a quizzical noise. Happy for now, she pushed herself off the bed and wandered towards the door. Along the way she blew out a frosty breath that froze another of the beds in the room solid. Eyes wide, she turned to me, almost to see if I'd noticed it. With a guilty face, she quickly made her way out of the room, leaving me confused with a half-eaten bird on my bed and another bed experiencing a severe case of frostbite.

* * *

"You know what? I've reached that level of insanity where nothing manages to surprise me anymore."

Alistair chuckled into my mind. _[Surely, sir, you expected something like this? Especially after that lengthy discussion with Master Brawly.]_

I shrugged, still staring at the paper in my hand. "Sure but… _this?_ You're a fucking internet sensation! Places I've never even heard of are worshipping you!"

He made a gesture, like he was tipping his hat. _[I am but one pokémon, sir. Talented and skilled, making the best of the situation at hand.]_

"Still…" I breathed. "A pokémon _arm-wrestling_ competition? With you as a judge and the final opponent?"

He chuckled again. _[Do not fear sir, I am not leaving you. You are required to be at all matches and oversee everything in regards to my safety. You have the final word towards every decision where my safety is in concern.]_

"So… no pressure," I chuckled nervously. "Geez, when did the world become so normal and yet so weird? Hunting down a psycho-celebi was one thing, but you being a pseudo-celebrity? I think I'm going to need to get my brain checked out to make sure I didn't get captured by the celebi and I'm experiencing a very, _very_ strange dream."

Alistair smiled. _[Were it that simple sir. I am afraid that actual life is nothing but surprises.]_

"You're telling me," I grunted, handing him back the paper. "Well, whatever you decide, I'm behind you. I know you say I have the final word, but I trust you to make the decisions yourself. I'll only step in if I _really_ disagree with what you're saying."

He bowed. _[You are too kind, sir. I shall return these signed forms to Master Brawly.]_

I laughed and played with the lid of the pen in my pocket. "What's to stop him from thinking you forged the signatures?"

He smirked. _[Who's to say I haven't done so before?]_

He teleported away before I could grill him on that. I buried my hands in my hair and stared in disbelief at the table I sat on. I don't know how long I was sat there before Chris came and found me.

"I know that you're helping to train the pokémon and everything, but you sitting around every time you come and visit is making my workers feel jealous."

"Sorry," I grunted, jumping off the table.

She laughed and stopped me from leaving with an arm in my way. "Relax. I was kidding. They know that some people only come here to train pokémon; everyone has different jobs. Speaking of pokémon; does your beartic seriously believe people don't notice when it causes destruction?"

I snorted. "Wrex? Yeah, she seems to think that she can get away with anything. I think it's because so many people think cubchoo are so sweet and let them get away with murder. She's probably had that for however long and thinks she can still abuse the cute and innocent look to get away with everything."

"She's fiercely loyal though," Chris told me. She pulled up a seat, leant back and crossed her legs on the table. "One of the fire pokémon here – a typloshion – was shouting at your magneton for something or another. Next thing I know, your beartic's jumped in and wiped the floor with the typlohsion."

I didn't know whether to be proud or mortified. "Is everyone okay then?"

"Suppose so," Chris said, grabbing a drink she'd left on the floor. She took a sip and smiled at me. "Your magneton's pretty timid anyway, but I think seeing a big, hulking polar bear sticking up for her made her feel a bit more confident. Honestly, I think that would make anyone feel a lot braver. As for the typloshion… its ego's bruised worse than its body. Its trainer spent a good five minutes shouting at me until I showed him the security footage, after which he spent about thirty minutes apologising profusely."

I laughed. "So how's everything with you?"

She sighed contently. "All good. Jon's got a heavy week at work this week, so I'm not seeing him much. My sisters think I'm crazy for having one week where I see him often, then another when I see him maybe once. But I like it. It suits us both better." She shook her head and placed her drink back on the floor. "But of course; that's bound to change. He proposed after we'd been going out for a few months. I told him he'd have to ask me again once we'd been going out a year. It's reaching ten months now."

"That's good though, right?" I said unsurely. "I mean, the ten month thing. But why are you concerned about the other thing? Don't you want to be with him?"

"No, not that!" she said quickly, laughing. "Don't get me wrong, I do love him. I _do_ want to marry him. But as soon as he proposes and I accept, it becomes… _official_. I like the fact I don't see him every day, as weird as it sounds. It lets me be myself. Once we're engaged, everything starts happening. We'll have to move in together and I'm not entirely certain how I feel about that."

I shrugged and sat back down on the table. "Then don't move in together? I mean, you're expanding this place pretty well. He's on call most hours of the night, so he's going to need to be near the hospital at most times, isn't he? So what if he keeps his place, but you see each other more often? Like he spends weekends here and you spend a night or two at his?"

"Maybe," she said, contemplating it. "Problem with living out here is that it's an hour's drive to the hospital. He needs to be in instantly, he's pretty stuffed. Your idea's good! I guess I'll have to sit down with him and discuss it. Either way, he's not making me get rid of my teddy bear collection."

I raised an eyebrow. "_You_ have a teddy bear collection?"

"Yes," she growled, defensive. "_So?"_

"Nothing!" I said quickly, laughter breaking through. "I just wouldn't have thought it."

"People can surprise you," she said sagely. "Talking of people, what's happening with you and your crazy alternate-life-wife?"

"Don't call her that," I pleaded.

"Fine," Chris laughed. "So?"

I shrugged. "Not a clue. We slept together, I said the wrong thing afterwards and she's pretty much ignoring me."

"And this wrong thing was?"

I stared down at my shoes. "I asked her if she thought us being together was another plan. The celebi made us believe we were married in this weird alternate life that every so often crashes down on me. I mean, if it did that, what're the chances of any good coming out of us getting together?"

Chris frowned and then kicked me in the backside. I yelped and leapt up as she motioned throwing something at me. "Are you a _complete_ ass? That's not exactly pillow talk! Maybe there is a plan for all of that. Maybe there isn't. But you know what? She's probably worried about the exact same thing and was hoping that you'd ignore it. You've both tried to kill each other and yet still, somehow you manage to work together and argue like an old married couple already.

"Maybe the celebi just wanted to see if putting two people together in their dreams would make them find each other when they were actually living. Maybe your consciousness linked with hers and you both dreamed it. Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's true love. Maybe it's just teenage hormones. Point is, where sex and relationships are involved, people don't _want_ to think logically." She sighed and kicked me again. "Stop being such an ass and apologise to her. You might be right, but we still like it when you apologise to us first. Take my advice here; if you want something with her, take things slow and don't breach that sort of topic when things are intimate."

"Thanks," I said, smiling at her. "What would I do without you?"

"Live a life of loneliness and self-pleasure?"

I snorted before I could stop myself. "You get worse and worse."

She winked. "There's no fun in being good as gold. The real fun comes from being naughty. Also occasionally from whips and chains."

I slapped my hands over my ears. "Too much information!" I said through laughter.

"Prude," she accused. She rubbed some warmth back into her hands and watched all the steam from her drink vanish into the air. "Back to work for me, I guess. Unfortunately these pokémon aren't going to completely care for themselves."

"I'll feed the ice ones for you," I offered as I bounced off the table. "Seeing as how you can't handle the cold."

She scowled and whacked the back of my head. "Not all of us are freaky ice attuned half-breeds. Some of us have to handle being plain old humans."

I grinned at her. "Well, you've got the 'old' part right."

She gave me a glare that could scare dragons. "If you want to actually want to experience being eighteen for more than a month, keep _those_ comments under wraps."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't think I don't realise you whisper things in my missing ear. I might not be able to hear much through it, but I still can make out the odd word."

She laughed and ruffled my hair. "Not a clue what you're talking about. Now go feed those pokémon before I feed you to something myself. And check on your beartic. I don't want her beating up more client's pokémon."

"Slave driver."

She pulled her arm back. "Slaves tend to get daily beatings, don't they?"

"Point taken!"

* * *

_Charizard express; where is your destination today?_

I snorted and threw my gloves at him. "Why do you think I want flying somewhere? Have you not noticed every time you fly me somewhere I tend to stay on the ground for as long as I can?"

Scar snorted and scratched under his chin.

_I merely ask. I enjoy flying. I also find your screams of certain death amusing._

I glowered at him. "You're really not funny."

_You, however, are._

"Glad I entertain you so," I snarled. "I came here to tell you something actually. One of your eggs finally hatched. This one's a baby charmander."

He flicked his tongue. _Interesting. Son? Daughter? What was the mother?_

I laughed. "You really have been spreading it around, haven't you? It's a boy; the mother was an altaria."

_I wish to see him. You do not mind?_

"No, that's totally fine," I said, waving my hand in the general direction of where I'd come from. "You remember where the altaria nest is in Chris' place, don't you?"

He snorted a few embers from his nose. _Of course._

He took off into the sky a moment after that. I busied myself by letting Loki out and talking to him for a bit. Lacey was nearby, scrutinising plants and telling me how generally useless they were for any sort of problem.

_Trainer, make a trap with this tree_. She pointed at the tree in question and then to a spot on the ground. _I wish to see it fling pokémon across the horizon._

I laughed at the mental picture. "I don't think that actually works in reality. I could always see if we could find an old, working catapult and see if that still works though?

_Good_, she decided, folding her arms. _I wish to witness more human inventions. Guns are interesting, but too strong for my wrists. I understand that. I wish to learn how to use a bow and arrow._

I pulled a face. "You've got to have a lot of upper body strength for that, I think."

She rolled her eyes. _Do you think me a weak abra, coddled at the breast? I am able to hold my own. Learning to use a bow will not tax me. I may even be able to fight well again by using it._

"I don't think you're allowed to use a bow and arrow in pokémon battles."

_Whoever said it would be used in battles?_

"You know what? Forget I said anything." I turned away from her and decided that I wasn't going to indulge in that train of madness for much longer. "You don't want to learn to use anything like that, do you Loki?"

He looked up at me, thinking as he scratched his neck. _[Loki… Loki content. Loki would like to swim, but water makes big splash, splash, splash! It pulls Loki in and doesn't let him escape well.]_

I chuckled and rubbed his head. "Well, I'll see what I can do about teaching you how to swim. It'll be a lot easier than teaching Lacey how to use a bow anyhow."

She stalked to my side. _Are you trying to say I am difficult to teach?_

"More like _I'd_ have to learn how to use one first."

She coughed. _I am hardly surprised. It seems to require a finesse you appear to lack._

I sighed. "You're just all sugar and sunshine, aren't you Lacey?"

_I am. I am just the sort that causes death through diabetes or sunstroke._

"That doesn't surprise me in the slightest."

_I thought it would not._ She stopped as we reached a more crowded part of the forest and a bird above us shrieked. _Stupid creature. We have every right to be here. Move your fool body before I bury it._

"I think I liked you better when I couldn't understand you," I grunted. I turned away from her and tried to look up into the trees. "Scar? You hiding around here?"

A roar answered my question. We made way towards it, stopped at another bird shriek and heard him roar again. We finally reached what seemed to be the start of a hillside where a large, fluffy dragon sat in a nest surrounded by smaller, fluffier birds. Nearby was Scar, standing proudly over a tiny little lizard that batted at his tail.

Scar growled, leant down and nudged the baby charmander with his nose. _This is Callous_.

"Callous?" I parroted, thinking I'd misunderstood. "It's… descriptive, I guess."

Scar rolled his eyes at me. _It is a warrior's name. It shall strike fear into his opponents._ As if on cue, the baby charmander tried to stand up and fell back on his face again. …_Once he learns how to walk, of course._

I smiled. "Well, I… urm, I think it's a good name." Loki was so excited to see him and Scar so reluctant to let the demonic little sableye near Callous that I recalled him, telling him I'd let him see Scar and the new charmander later.

_So you should_, Scar said, snorting a light plume of smoke. _He is also named after you._

I tried my best not to well up. "Really?"

_Really. I wish to train this young for myself. An altaria will not raise it properly._

The pokémon in question took offence to that, shrieking and fluffing up. Scar roared at it, silencing it in one.

_Altaria cannot teach charmander much. Charmander need to learn how to cope before learning to fly. Altaria are able to fly even when young. They are wrong for parenting. They will not parent my young._

"What about the others then?" I asked him.

He growled. _They were not strong. They were weak children. I know, I looked after the young in my clan; I was their teacher. The weak die easily unless taken by a trainer. Callous is strong. I shall teach him and he shall be unmatched in all regards._

He blew a stream of fire into the air, roaring proudly. His charmander reared back, mesmerised by the flames and tried to copy him. Instead it only managed a small cough and a roar that was most definitely nothing more than a squeak. It seemed more like it would only unnerve its opponents with cuteness rather than intimidation.

Scar reached down and picked up Callous. He walked over, held him out in front of me and placed him in my arms. _Callous, meet your namesake. He has proved he is not callous, but your name derives from his. I know no one better to name you after._ Scar reared back, smiled and craned his neck to Lacey. _You shall teach him poisons when he is old enough._

She nearly fell over from shock. _Who says I shall agree to such a thing?_

He snorted, watching her with a lazy expression. _Because you wish to pass on your knowledge. That is obvious. Also, if you do not, I shall simply burn down your plants until you finally agree._

She folded her arms and snarled at him. _You are a demanding old dragon._

He smiled back at her. _And you are the best; the one who I wish him to learn from._

She waved a hand. _Flattery will get you nowhere, dragon. Though I accept, as long as you understand I will not be a lenient teacher._

Scar smiled and nudged my head with his chin. _You shall teach him the weak points you know so well. I trust I do not have to attempt to drop you from a great height to convince you?_

I looked from him to his squirming child. It looked up at me, eyes wide and then decided to use my thumb as a chew toy. "What makes you think I'm going to teach him exclusively?"

_I never said it should be exclusive. Just that you teach him._ He folded his wings by his side, picked his child up in his arms and blew a little stream of flame over him. _I shall care for him. After a month, he shall know how to gather food for himself. Come, Callous. You have your life to learn._

I watched as Scar walked off a little into the forest, child cradled carefully in his arms. I threw a concerned glance at Lacey. "Is that how most charizard treat their young?"

She raised an eyebrow. _Do I look like an expert on his species to you?_ She barked a laugh, turned away and rolled her eyes. _He is proud. He wants the best for his child. The fact that he has entrusted us to teach him says a lot towards how much he trusts and respects us._ She made a point of poking me in the chest. _Just do not teach him the weak points of allies. I still remember when you first captured me._'

It seemed like a lifetime ago. "All's fair in love and war, isn't it?"

_I would like to see you saying that after I kick you in the testicles._

"I'll just be quiet then."

* * *

The sixth month was mundane.

* * *

The girl screamed like her life depended on it.

In a way, it did.

"Loki," I said, voice no more than a whisper.

He threw his head back in a deadly cackle. Into the shadows he leapt, appearing behind the girl with a deathly grin. His hands stretched out of the shadows, grabbed either side of exposed neck and with a haunting wail, he pulled the head clean off.

The girl screamed again, leaping away from all the blood and gore. Lacey leapt to her side, arms a blur. There was a scream and her victim simply fell apart.

Erra watched her victim with a long stare. It looked back at her, neither of them moving for a long moment.

Then with a screech, Erra descended on it, claws and mandibles ripping it to shreds. Scar simply picked up his victim and squashed it's head against the floor. Alistair sliced his victim's head off and Wrex froze hers solid.

The girl placed a hand over her heart, panting wildly. She looked up at me, eyes wide and then back to the group of would-be pokémon hunters.

"T-thanks mister," she gasped. Her brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, equally brown eyes brimming with equal parts fear and gratitude. She wore the standard body warmer and combat jeans that most trainers wore, except hers were covered in a generous amount of blood. By her side was a beldum, floating emotionlessly in the air, gleaming a bright silver under the sun.

"No problem," I said, nodding for my pokémon to come back. I checked Lacey over quickly, making sure she hadn't torn anything open. "Whenever you train that thing of yours, keep a few other pokémon out, at least until its strong enough to take care of you both."

She took a deep breath and managed to calm herself somewhat. "Okay. Thank you. _Really_. I don't know how I can make it up to you."

I smiled and pointed at the paperwork she had dropped on the floor. "Championship registration?" I chuckled at her nod. "Tell ya what; train that beldum of yours enough and take at least fourth place in that championship. Then we'll call it even."

Her eyes widened just a little bit more. "Th-thanks." She picked up her papers and bowed her head. "Really, I mean it."

"I know," I said, rolling my eyes a little. "Now go on, get going. And try to take care of yourself better next time. No one will complain if you accidentally kick someone in the privates while he's trying to steal your pokémon."

She laughed a little at that, thanked me again and took off down the path, releasing a honchkrow that circled her as she ran off.

Once she'd nearly disappeared into the horizon, there was a rustle in the bushes near me.

"Who was that?" Natasha asked.

I shrugged. "Someone I thought I'd never meet."

Her eyes narrowed and she made all the calculations quickly. "You have a sister?"

I nodded. "One sister, two brothers. All younger than me. And then an older sister too."

"Wow," she said, eyes widening. "Seems like your family sure as hell made up for you dying."

"I know," I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. "At least I'm managing to help them in some way. I can't very well ever show up and I can't ever really get to know them. Otherwise… somehow, the truth might come out. This way's better."

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "Is that honestly what you want?"

I laughed a disdainful tune. "Far from it. But it's for the best. And that's all that matters."

* * *

It was the seventh month that brought about a change in everything.

I flopped down on the grass, thoroughly exhausted. Erra flitted down and landed next to my head, Loki remained hiding in the shadows and Alistair doubled over, winded. Wrex was sat a little bit away from us, curiously batting at a pidgey nest. Lacey threw her a pointed glare from the shaded shelter of a tree whilst Scar busied himself teaching Callous how to properly breathe fire.

"No more training for today," I gasped, breathless. "I can't manage anymore."

_I have seen slowpoke with more energy than you_.

I picked up a clump of grass and threw it at Lacey. She smirked smugly as it landed some distance away from her.

Erra perked up suddenly, clicking wildly. _Phone!_

I glanced up at her just as my phone started ringing. Chris had told me once that magneton could interrupt certain frequencies of signals; as part of that they could also sense when they were coming in. She was like an alarm clock for my phone calls. Especially handy when even if I lacked signal to receive them, she could still tell me someone was trying to ring me.

I glanced at the caller name for an instant before sliding the phone open. "Hey Marsha. How many corpses can I help you find today?"

I sat up as she explained exactly what she needed from me. She didn't have to ask twice whether or not I'd help out.

"Of course," I said. "As if I'd miss something like this."

* * *

I checked the rounds left in my gun. Three.

Nowhere near enough.

Yet I'd achieved miracles in similar situations anyway.

Panting heavily, Marsha slid into cover next to me. Water dripped from her forehead and she made no effort to wipe it away.

"Remind me again just why the hell I chose to do this job?"

I smirked, yet I wasn't the one who spoke.

"A few levels of insanity, a few more of intrigue and maybe just a little bit of bloodlust."

Marsha laughed through gritted teeth. "I suppose you're right. Isn't that hat a bit of a target though?"

Natasha rolled her eyes as she reloaded her shotgun. "I like hats. They're an extra barrier between my brain and whatever's trying to attack it. And right now, that's kind of a blessing."

There was a roar so loud in the distance it shook the entire town. Rain poured down on us all constantly. The wind swirled in the air and made the rain look like it was the waves in the sea, crashing into each other in mid-air. A lightning bolt hammered down and exploded against a nearby house. Concrete and roof-tiles flew into the air at the same moment a peel of thunder roared from the heavens themselves.

"Would anyone like to tell me why we're going up against _that_ with only a few peashooters?" I grunted.

Marsha winced as a blast of ice soared over us and froze a cluster of houses solid. "Would you rather go up against it bare-handed?"

"Besides, we're just the distraction team," Natasha said, voice calm as anything. "Hopefully they'll manage to do something before everything gets really bad."

"They should," Marsha said confidently. "Because if I die, I'm going to come back and haunt them for the rest of their lives."

I laughed and fingered the release cord for all my poké balls. "Ready guys?"

They nodded. On three, all of our pokémon appeared, ready for a fight.

I smirked and felt the familiar rush of battle wash over me. I'd played my part in dooming everything. Being a part of the good fight was a welcome change. I grabbed the sniper rifle by my feet and took confidence in the familiarity of it.

One shot, one kill, just like old times.

Different target, same old goal.

I looked up at my pokémon and shared a smile with them all.

"Alright guys, looks like it's time to save the world."

* * *

"_All the people I've known, the experiences I've had, the things I've done, I carry with me wherever I go. I might not like it all. Some things might make me sad to remember them._

"_All of them make me who I am today._

"_And you know what?_

"_There's no one else I'd rather be." _

- Callum Swift. _(Date inconsequential.)_


	60. In the End, Does It Even Matter?

**Pokémon**

**Regret**

_By Crukix_

* * *

**Epilogue: In the End, Does It Even Matter?**

**-O-O-O-**

Wishes.

They're fun little things, a distraction from our own life; a want to change things we can't actually achieve.

But were they really my wishes to begin with? If everything in my life had been created, tailor-made for one specific purpose, how could I say that my long-lasting wish to escape a hellhole was actually mine?

The original wish that sustained me was to get out. I wished for a chance to escape the hellhole I thought was my life.

Instead I was birthed into purgatory and conceived in hell.

I'd change that wish if I ever had the chance. To what? I'm not sure.

Within a year I was the snowball that started the world's destruction. Little things here and there; the right place at the right time. What I thought was fate were merely the machinations of a time traveller bored of eternal life.

Wishes have a price.

Mine was being an unconscious slave to a master more arrogant than he was old.

I won't live to see the world fall apart, but I've already seen it in my mind. I started this journey with the goal to save the world, taking what I knew of the future and changing the past.

Maybe I've done that, in a way. The only difference is that it was on my terms, rather than someone else's.

Maybe I succeeded. Maybe I failed. But you know what? That's just life. I'll leave playing with the future to those that have the power to do so.

In a way, my wish did come true. I spent a year paying for it to finally have it succeed. I had the rest of my life to do the good I originally wanted a chance to achieve.

In the end, do my actions even matter?

I'll let you be the judge of that.

But do I regret what I did with my life?

Honestly…

Not one little bit.

* * *

_Author's note._

And that, my friends, is it. I know many of you may have expected a long winded ending. I did too, for some time. But at the end of the day, we started with a small chapter, we end with one. Book ends and all that.

Hard to believe that little over a year and a half ago, this was nothing more than the spark of an idea that stopped me sleeping for a couple of nights. From there it exploded into being, bringing you, I and the cast along with it. And now, just shy of a year and two-thirds later, we're done. You guys have been awesome and it wouldn't have been the same without you. And really, when I look at it; it's not half-bad for my first attempt at writing a first-person story.

So, not every question may be answered. But when they are, it's no fun that way. I still hold all the answers though, so if something's really bugging you, feel free to ask. I'll also occasionally be adding little one-shots about the story and the cast to my deviantArt page which you can get to on my profile.

And now, more importantly.

I'm not quite finished writing yet.

There's another story coming. Same universe. Cameos from existing cast. More insanity. More drama. More heartbreak. Less darkness and at the same time, so much more. More demonisation of pokemon. And possibly more importantly; some questions may be answered. I'll be taking some time out to get up to scratch with it, understand where I want things to go, etc, etc. I'll be taking November off to get everything sorted, churning my brain for plot whilst many of you are wearing out your keyboards with NaNoWriMo.

Dear readers, come December 1st, I shall be presenting you with _Transgression_, the next step into this dark pokemon world I've built up.

That's that then. I won't waste your time with long goodbyes, for you shall be hearing from me again soon. Instead, I simply say;

'Til next time.

~Cru


End file.
